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 (for example I have been using
Linux for quite many years, and it still takes as much disk space as
it took when I first installed it, discounting the system components
that I have installed on purpose).

  Apparently that behavior is now an official feature that cannot be
turned off.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/09/17/what-is-the-winsxs-directory-in-windows-2008-and-windows-vista-and-why-is-it-so-large.aspx

  Some people are running out of disk space, making everything break,
and they have no idea how to fix it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 15 May 2012 16:28:05 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Some people are running out of disk space, making everything break,
> and they have no idea how to fix it.

Sure they do - as a friend of mine who's in Microsoft Consulting (as in 
"works for Microsoft as a consultant" said - "hard drives are cheap.  Buy 
a bigger one."

That sums up MS' attitude pretty well, I think.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 15 May 2012 16:28:05 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >   Some people are running out of disk space, making everything break,
> > and they have no idea how to fix it.

> Sure they do - as a friend of mine who's in Microsoft Consulting (as in 
> "works for Microsoft as a consultant" said - "hard drives are cheap.  Buy 
> a bigger one."

> That sums up MS' attitude pretty well, I think.

  Does Windows even support extending the C: drive to another disk?
(Or is Microsoft's answer to that "just reinstall Windows to the other
disk"?)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 15 May 2012 16:42:55 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Does Windows even support extending the C: drive to another disk?
> (Or is Microsoft's answer to that "just reinstall Windows to the other
> disk"?)

ISTR there's a way to move winsxs to another drive (or maybe that was the 
MSOCache for Office).

But I don't know that I'd want to span the system drive to another 
physical disk - that doubles the chances for a failure that blows the 
system out of the water.

Jim

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> "hard drives are cheap.  Buy a bigger one."
>
> That sums up MS' attitude pretty well, I think.

And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why hardware vendors love Micro$oft.

Never mind that there's no /need/ for a mere operating system to take up 
more than a few MB of disk space; why worry when you can just buy more 
hardware?

I really hate that attitude...

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On 15/05/2012 09:42 PM, Warp wrote:

>    Does Windows even support extending the C: drive to another disk?
> (Or is Microsoft's answer to that "just reinstall Windows to the other
> disk"?)

If you use the "dynamic disk" feature, you can expand a partition. And 
Windows has had software-RAID features for a long time now. It also 
supports Unix-style mount points. So, yeah, it ought to be possible to 
do this.

(Another alternative is to just use a disk imaging tool. Because, let's 
face it, everybody can afford one of those, right?)

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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...

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On 5/16/2012 1:28, 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".

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.

-- 
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 Wed, 16 May 2012 09:21:30 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> (Another alternative is to just use a disk imaging tool. Because, let's
> face it, everybody can afford one of those, right?)

Absolutely.

http://clonezilla.org/

http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page

Jim

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On Wed, 16 May 2012 09:19:53 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> "hard drives are cheap.  Buy a bigger one."
>>
>> That sums up MS' attitude pretty well, I think.
> 
> And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why hardware vendors love Micro$oft.

Indeed, I've been saying this since the early 90's.  HW vendors love MS, 
because it lets them sell more hardware.  And with more hardware comes 
more (and higher value) maintenance contracts.

And with more maintenance contracts comes more regular payments and more 
regular income.

Jim

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