Windows 7 folder is huge

[Kermunos]

Hey

So I checked today why i have so little space on my drive and it turns out my windows folder is almost 16 GB. Is that normal? How can I shrink it.

I tried already Advance Clean-up but nothing has changed. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[kronckew]

the winsxs folder may seem to be large, but it's mostly hard linked files (ie. if you hard link to a 2gb file, system reports 4gb used tho it's really only the one file and a virtual link to the same file), it appears to take up a lot of room, but it's effectively counting the space twice. do not delete anything in the winsxs directory. try searching microsoft's site for winsxs if you get tempted. the free space is more than reported.

you can try running ccleaner from piriform, it'll clear out a lot more junk than microsofts cleaner & is relatively safe.

be careful tho.

 

[dreamer]

Hey

So I checked today why i have so little space on my drive and it turns out my windows folder is almost 16 GB. Is that normal? How can I shrink it.

I tried already Advance Clean-up but nothing has changed. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Yes your windows folder size is perfectly normal.Mine is around 18 GB.

And you can't and should not shrink your windows folder.It would make your system unusable.

Installing windows 7 on 60-90 GB partition is enough in my opinion.Whats the size of your C drive anyway?

 

[seavixen32]

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

Out of curiosity, I checked my Windows folder and it currently sits at 23.5 GB.

Of that the WinSXS folder accounts for 9.5 GB.

In my view you've got nothing to be overly concerned about.



That said, you can:

1. Run Disk Cleanup
2. Delete the Windows.old folder if you have one and there is nothing you need in it
3. Reduce the size of your shadow storage space
4. Invest in a bigger hard drive
5. Uninstall any software you don't use

Whatever you do, don't try and compress your Windows folder. Also, leave the WinSXS folder as it is or you may encounter instability problems.

Check out this excellent tutorial by Brink: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

 

[CB]

Hi Kermunos

More
If you often use third party downloader program to download large files sized to gigabyte, if any, try to set the temp folder other then C. In case it fail to complete it won't leave big size trash on it.

 

[stereo]

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

1. Reduce the size of your shadow storage space

Can you explain how to do that, please ?
Thanks

 

[seavixen32]

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

1. Reduce the size of your shadow storage space

Can you explain how to do that, please ?
Thanks

Click Start and type cmd in the Search field.

Right-click cmd under the Programs list and choose Run as Administrator.

Accept the UAC prompt then type the following command and press Enter to run it:

Vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=2GB

Next, type Exit then press Enter to close the command window.

Pay particular attention to the spaces in the command line. Note the drive letter of the drive you want reduce the shadow storage on and the MaxSize, which can be any size you want, but be aware that by reducing the size allocated for shadow storage you also reduce the number of restore points available.

Once your restore points have filled the allocated drive space, Windows will start to delete the oldest ones.

 

[stereo]

I never use Windows backup- restore, only Acronis.
So, in this case, cand i do
Vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=0GB
?

 

[seavixen32]

You could, but it's just as easy to go into System Properties and turn System Restore off.

 

[Dexx]

16GB isnt much when compared to today's hard disk sizes. But the principle is that we are "doing less with more". Win7 doesnt have that many more features than Win XP. Yet the install is 10 times the size! Tens of thousands of files. The .Net content of Win7 alone is larger than a full XP install. It strikes me as being laziness on Microsoft's part. However they dont have a monopoly on promoting bloat, it seems to be the norm with all modern commercial software houses.

 

[fbp]

I have a Windows 7 machine with a 64 GB c: partition and it shows as 1 GB free, but properties of everything shows 40 GB used. The swap is on another drive and there is nothing in recycling and the shadow stuff is turned off. Ran cleaner and it indicated deleting 2 GB, but the space did not go to the free pool...

WinDirStat of c: reports:

.dll Application 14.8G
.sys System files 6.4G
.exe Application 4.6G
.cab Archives 3.6G
.h .h files 2.7G
.a .a files 2.6G
.msi Instailler 2.6G
. local disk 2.2G
.log text files 2.1G
.msp MS patches 1.8G
.vhd VM files 1.4G
.ci CI files 1.2G
.edb EDB files 1.1G
.txt Test files 1.0G
....
​

1) Were is the other 24 GByte?
2) Why is windows 40 GB - so HUGE?
3) Is there a way to make the c: drive read only?
(Enable for upgrades, but otherwise read only - no user space, no temp files)

 

[AddRAM]

You should start your own thread, you will get more help that way

System Restore takes up space, the page file takes up space, and windows takes up about 16 to 20 GBs

 

[madcratebuilder]

16gb is a small Windows folder, mine is 23gb and I have User, temp and swap on the spinner. Another box with a fresh install of 7 shows 15.8gb.

 

[AddRAM]

Mine is 20 GB, with all my apps. I don`t use a page file, and I don`t use system restore.

 

[btswein]

Another tip is to disable hibernation. Open a command prompt as Admin, then type powercfg -h off .

 

[fbp]

> Mine is 20 GB, with all my apps. I don`t use a page file, and I don`t use system restore.
> Another tip is to disable hibernation. Open a command prompt as Admin, then type powercfg -h off .

All of the large system files are on other drives, swap, hiber, et cetera...

It looks like there are tons of OS, update and applications files...
Plus some good sized logs...

If it matters, the machine has 8GB of RAM, a 128 GB SSD, 1TB hard drive and an i5 CPU.

Having a 40 GB OS is mind boggling and loosing 24 GB of storage on the c: drive seems... wrong...

 

[LMiller7]

It is important t understand that the reported 16 GB in the Windows folder is actually larger than reality. This is largely due to the use of hard links. Hard links have been a part of the NTFS file system since Windows 2000 but weren't used in Windows until Vista. I won't go into the details but they allow one copy of a file to appear in multiple folders. This provides a number of important advantages, one being that it saves disk space. Windows determines the space used by a folder by going through each folder and adding up the sizes of each file. But when hard links are used that means a great deal of double counting. It is not that Windows is lying about the space used, it is that there are multiple truths, all different , and all equally valid. Determining the disk usage of a folder is actually very complex. Many arbitrary decisions must be made with no clear way to determine which is better.

Windows 7 is actually doing a great deal more than XP. It is just that much of this is not readily apparent to the user.

There are many trade offs in the design of complex software. Over the years due to changing technology the priorities have shifted. Many XP systems were installed on 20 GB hard disks and some even smaller. And that space had to be shared by all of the applications and data. Today most members of this forum would consider a 500 GB drive as rather small. This means that disk usage is less important and priorities can shift to other things.

 

[mjf]

For comparison here is a snip of my OS partition.
no system restore
no hibernation
2GB pagefile.sys (it's on an SSD)
My winsxs reports 10GB which is a bit larger than normal for some reason.


Windows disk properties reports 47.9GB.

Your issue is still a bit of a puzzle.

 

[whs]

25GB for more than 91 thousand files is actually a good deal, LOL.

 

[Wordsworth]

My Windows folder was 22.5GB with over 100k files until I used Disk Cleanup a few minutes ago. First use of cleanup since re-installing everything a week ago with a new SSD. Big chunk was the Service Pack backup. Real "lean" now with less than 89k files.