Warp wrote:

>   Every time Windows installs a new version of .NET, it writes a huge amount
> of files to the C: drive. These are important files and cannot be removed
> (unless you really want to uninstall .NET, making many programs not work).

AFAIK, my Windows system didn't have *any* version of .NET installed 
until that time I installed VisualStudio. (But then, I guess it depends 
which software you're trying to run...)

>   Every time you install a program, even if you don't install it in C:,
> Windows will write uninstallation info for that program in the C: drive.
> AFAIK there's no way around it. The only way to remove them safely is
> to remove the program itself.

It's usually fairly small though. So unless you install *a lot* of stuff...

>   Also, many programs (especially games) want to write tons of data
> under the "Documents and Settings" directory in the C: drive. AFAIK there's
> no way to change this.

Ah yes, this is loads of fun.

I'm told you can change some registry key (manually of course) to make 
this folder live somewhere else. But I'm not sure how many programs 
would actually take notice; ever tried installing Windows in, say, 
D:\WINDOWS, and seeing programs stuff files into C:\WINDOWS anyway?

>   Every time any part of Java updates itself, it feels the need to leave
> its old files in their place, and install the new files in new directories
> (under C:, naturally). This easily accounts for hundreds of megabytes.

Yeah. The updater for Adobe Acrobat Reader likes to stuff the installer 
files in a temp folder inside Documents and Settings. For no defined reason.

>   The somewhat equivalent of "Documents and Settings" in Linux (and in Unix
> in general) is your home directory, but programs don't tend to write tons
> of data there.

I'm still wondering why no OS has yet come up with the idea of 
seperating "documents" from "settings", but hey...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message