On 5/16/2012 1:28 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 15/05/2012 09:28 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Windows has basically always been infamous for taking more and more
>> disk space over time, no matter how much you try to clean it. It just
>> grows. No other OS I know of does this.
>>
>> Apparently that behavior is now an official feature that cannot be
>> turned off.
>
> In summary, "when you install an update, we keep a copy of the old
> version as well as the updated one".
>
> To be completely fair, I've seen Linux package managers that won't
> redownload stuff you've already downloaded once. The difference being,
> presumably there's a way to safely delete the cached content if you want
> to.
>
> I've always thoroughly disliked Micro$oft's attitude of "if our software
> isn't fast enough, buy more hardware". But since there is precisely
> nothing I can do to change it, it's pointless to complain...
Well. No direct, or obvious, way, but, in principle, you can do it, if 
you know how. Which is like the #2 feature of Windows: No one has a 
frakking clue how, especially the people selling Windows, or hardware 
(um.. paid not to know? lol).

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>> In summary, "when you install an update, we keep a copy of the old
>> version
>> as well as the updated one".
>
> Except people seem to be missing this part:
>
> "Service Pack 1 contains a binary called VSP1CLN.EXE, a tool that will
> make the Service Pack package permanent (not removable) on your system,
> and remove the RTM versions of all superseded components."
>
> In other words, if you install the new version and decide you never want
> to roll back to the old version, you can delete the old version.
>
> Seems completely reasonable to me.
>
>> To be completely fair, I've seen Linux package managers that won't
>> redownload stuff you've already downloaded once. The difference being,
>> presumably there's a way to safely delete the cached content if you
>> want to.
>
> There is here too. It's even described in the article.

1. So there's a secret undocumented tool for doing this? Yeah, that's 
really going to help your average Joe who's just trying to keep their 
computer running.

2. It appears to only apply to /service packs/, not the fifty billion 
updates per day that Windows Update will be downloading without your 
knowledge unless you specifically turned it off.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Seems completely reasonable to me.

> 1. So there's a secret undocumented tool for doing this? Yeah, that's 
> really going to help your average Joe who's just trying to keep their 
> computer running.

> 2. It appears to only apply to /service packs/, not the fifty billion 
> updates per day that Windows Update will be downloading without your 
> knowledge unless you specifically turned it off.

  I think he was being sarcastic. (Well, I hope so.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 5/17/2012 1:15, Invisible wrote:
> 1. So there's a secret undocumented tool for doing this? Yeah, that's really
> going to help your average Joe who's just trying to keep their computer
> running.

No. It's in Disk CLeanup too, it turns out.

> 2. It appears to only apply to /service packs/, not the fifty billion
> updates per day that Windows Update will be downloading without your
> knowledge unless you specifically turned it off.

Yep. Which then get rolled up into a service pack, and which can thus be 
deleted. If it's installing them without you knowing it, isn't it a good 
thing that you can uninstall them if they break something?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 18/05/2012 05:30 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/17/2012 1:15, Invisible wrote:
>> 1. So there's a secret undocumented tool for doing this? Yeah, that's
>> really
>> going to help your average Joe who's just trying to keep their computer
>> running.
>
> No. It's in Disk CLeanup too, it turns out.

That's interesting, because from what I can remember, Disk Cleanup 
offers to empty you Internet cache, and also spends eighty BILLION years 
scanning your entire harddrive to see if there are any files which 
haven't been accessed in the last 24 hours and could therefore be 
compressed. But it does /not/ offer to empty your temp folder, delete 
old OS updates, empty the recycle bin, trim the DLL cache, empty the 
precache folder, or indeed do /anything/ which might actually, you know, 
REDUCE DISK USAGE...

>> 2. It appears to only apply to /service packs/, not the fifty billion
>> updates per day that Windows Update will be downloading without your
>> knowledge unless you specifically turned it off.
>
> Yep. Which then get rolled up into a service pack, and which can thus be
> deleted.

Does that actually work? I mean, there have been /millions/ of updates 
for Windows XP, and last I heard, they're not even /making/ service 
packs for it any more. Even for the latest OS, they release a service 
pack, what, once every 3 years or so? So you're telling me this folder 
grows without limit, but once every 3 years you get to trim it? Yeah, 
that's fantastic.

> If it's installing them without you knowing it, isn't it a good
> thing that you can uninstall them if they break something?

That's probably not a bad idea. It would just be nice if there was a 
simple, easy to use interface for removing the old files once you're 
sure you don't need them any more.

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On 5/18/2012 1:09, Invisible wrote:
> and also spends eighty BILLION years scanning your
> entire harddrive to see if there are any files which haven't been accessed
> in the last 24 hours and could therefore be compressed.

Actually, it only does that for new files. The first time it takes a long 
time. After that, not so much. Me, I go in the registry, find the string 
that describes that operation, delete that key, and don't have to deal with 
that any more.

 > But it does /not/
> offer to empty your temp folder,

Yes it does.

> delete old OS updates,

No, but you used to be able to do that on XP from the add/remove, IIRC.

> empty the recycle bin,

Yes it does.

> trim the DLL cache,

Not sure what that means. The DLL cache is there to recover from you or a 
virus or some wanker of a program clobbering official DLLs. Why would you 
delete that?

> empty the precache folder,

Only holds 128 files at any given time, so there's no point in cleaning it up.

I get downloaded program files (i.e., java applets etc), temp internet 
files, office setup files, recycle bin, temp files, thumbnails, and error 
reporting files. Other programs can add their own easily - for example, 
firefox could (but doesn't) let you flush the cache from there.

> Does that actually work? I mean, there have been /millions/ of updates for
> Windows XP, and last I heard, they're not even /making/ service packs for it
> any more.

They did SP3, which was a rollup of everything up until they basically 
stopped supporting it. Honestly not sure if XP has SxS in this form.

> That's probably not a bad idea. It would just be nice if there was a simple,
> easy to use interface for removing the old files once you're sure you don't
> need them any more.

Wait for Windows 8? There's a limit on how much you can do on each release 
of an OS. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 27/05/2012 02:43 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/18/2012 1:09, Invisible wrote:
>> and also spends eighty BILLION years scanning your
>> entire harddrive to see if there are any files which haven't been
>> accessed
>> in the last 24 hours and could therefore be compressed.
>
> Actually, it only does that for new files. The first time it takes a
> long time. After that, not so much. Me, I go in the registry, find the
> string that describes that operation, delete that key, and don't have to
> deal with that any more.

Yeah, but manually doing that for 30 PCs isn't much fun.

>> But it does /not/ offer to empty your temp folder,
>
> Yes it does.

Really? I've never seen it.

>> delete old OS updates,
>
> No, but you used to be able to do that on XP from the add/remove, IIRC.

I think NT4 offered it, but I don't think XP does.

>> empty the recycle bin,
>
> Yes it does.

Again, I've never seen that offered. (Then again, in my case, usually 
there would be nothing to empty.)

>> trim the DLL cache,
>
> Not sure what that means. The DLL cache is there to recover from you or
> a virus or some wanker of a program clobbering official DLLs. Why would
> you delete that?

Oh, really? I thought it just contains a redundant copy of all the 
recently used DLLs so Windows doesn't have to search for them again.

>> empty the precache folder,
>
> Only holds 128 files at any given time, so there's no point in cleaning
> it up.

Well, until I read about it on the Internet, I didn't even know it 
existed. Clearly the dire warnings of "this is why Windows gradually 
slows down" were wrong.

>> Does that actually work? I mean, there have been /millions/ of updates
>> for
>> Windows XP, and last I heard, they're not even /making/ service packs
>> for it
>> any more.
>
> They did SP3, which was a rollup of everything up until they basically
> stopped supporting it. Honestly not sure if XP has SxS in this form.

It probably doesn't. It seems to generate a folder like

   C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB485734654$

for every single update it installs. So if you open the WINDOWS folder, 
you have to scroll past several billion of these folders before you get 
to the thing you were actually looking for - which is a bit annoying.

> Wait for Windows 8? There's a limit on how much you can do on each
> release of an OS. :-)

I don't see why that would be a problem for the biggest software 
producer on Earth, but hey...

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On 28/05/2012 9:02 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 27/05/2012 02:43 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 5/18/2012 1:09, Invisible wrote:
>>> and also spends eighty BILLION years scanning your
>>> entire harddrive to see if there are any files which haven't been
>>> accessed
>>> in the last 24 hours and could therefore be compressed.
>>
>> Actually, it only does that for new files. The first time it takes a
>> long time. After that, not so much. Me, I go in the registry, find the
>> string that describes that operation, delete that key, and don't have to
>> deal with that any more.
>
> Yeah, but manually doing that for 30 PCs isn't much fun.

That is why it is called work.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Le 2012-05-28 04:02, Invisible a écrit :
> On 27/05/2012 02:43 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 5/18/2012 1:09, Invisible wrote:
>>> and also spends eighty BILLION years scanning your
>>> entire harddrive to see if there are any files which haven't been
>>> accessed
>>> in the last 24 hours and could therefore be compressed.
>>
>> Actually, it only does that for new files. The first time it takes a
>> long time. After that, not so much. Me, I go in the registry, find the
>> string that describes that operation, delete that key, and don't have to
>> deal with that any more.
>
> Yeah, but manually doing that for 30 PCs isn't much fun.
>

Can't you push a .reg that does it automagically?

>>> But it does /not/ offer to empty your temp folder,
>>
>> Yes it does.
>
> Really? I've never seen it.
>
>>> delete old OS updates,
>>
>> No, but you used to be able to do that on XP from the add/remove, IIRC.
>
> I think NT4 offered it, but I don't think XP does.
>

Yes it does.  There's a checkmark at the top of the Add/Remove Programs 
window that allows you to see all of the patches and remove them 
individually, if you want to.


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>> Yeah, but manually doing that for 30 PCs isn't much fun.
>
> Can't you push a .reg that does it automagically?

There's probably a way of doing it. It's not particularly simple though.

>>>> delete old OS updates,
>>>
>>> No, but you used to be able to do that on XP from the add/remove, IIRC.
>>
>> I think NT4 offered it, but I don't think XP does.
>
> Yes it does. There's a checkmark at the top of the Add/Remove Programs
> window that allows you to see all of the patches and remove them
> individually, if you want to.

No, not uninstall the update, but remove the uninstall capability.

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