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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

> "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...

Post a reply to this message

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?)

Post a reply to this message

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...

Post a reply to this message

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."

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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).

Post a reply to this message

>> 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.

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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."

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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."

Post a reply to this message

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...

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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.


-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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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.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 28 May 2012 14:14:21 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> 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.

We used to do this with 6,000 PCs at a place I worked at.

There are tools to do this, and they're not difficult to use.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-05-28 09:14, Invisible a écrit :
>>> 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.
>

Type "disable compress old files" in Google.  while the two first 
entries appear legitimate, the third option is: 
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812248
Which tells you exactly which key to delete, just like Darren said, and 
is free from publicity.

Now, to automate the task, you can type ".reg file format" in Google.
"I'm feeling lucky" should send you to: 
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310516

Tada!

There's a link at the bottom of that knowledge-base article that 
explains how to distribute it using group policies.

How much simpler did you want it to be?

>>>>> 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.

I'm sorry.  Your complete sentence from the previous message was:

 >>>>> 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...

To most readers of the english language, it would appear that you wanted 
to be able to delete old OS updates.  If you wanted to be able to 
prevent someone from deleting an OS update, you worded it very poorly.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 5/28/2012 1:02, Invisible wrote:
> Yeah, but manually doing that for 30 PCs isn't much fun.

Not unless you automate it, no.

> 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.

No. If it was doing that, it would use a different structure rather than 
copying the entire DLL, don't you think?

> Clearly the dire warnings of "this is why Windows gradually slows down" were
> wrong.

They often are.

>> 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.

That's pre SxS, so I guess if you're worried about it, you delete the 
uninstall folders. That's how I always cleaned up.

>> 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...

It takes 9 months to make a baby regardless of how many women you assign.

-- 
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."

Post a reply to this message

On 5/28/2012 6:14, Invisible wrote:
> No, not uninstall the update, but remove the uninstall capability.

Delete the uninstall directory you're complaining about. Problem solved.

-- 
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."

Post a reply to this message

On 02/06/2012 09:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/28/2012 6:14, Invisible wrote:
>> No, not uninstall the update, but remove the uninstall capability.
>
> Delete the uninstall directory you're complaining about. Problem solved.

You have to play with the registry to remove the uninstall entry from 
the menu though.

But yeah, this thread started out by Warp pointing out that in later 
versions of Windows, it no longer works that way.

Post a reply to this message

On 6/3/2012 1:52, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> You have to play with the registry to remove the uninstall entry from the
> menu though.

Nope. You can just ask to uninstall it, and add/remove will say "Oh, gee, 
looks like it's already uninstalled."  But heck, if you're going around 
deleting folders with funky names out of the windows boot directory, you 
should be handy with the registry.

> But yeah, this thread started out by Warp pointing out that in later
> versions of Windows, it no longer works that way.

Yep.

-- 
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."

Post a reply to this message

On 03/06/2012 05:39 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 1:52, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> You have to play with the registry to remove the uninstall entry from the
>> menu though.
>
> Nope. You can just ask to uninstall it, and add/remove will say "Oh,
> gee, looks like it's already uninstalled."

Last time I tried it, it crashed with some error message - but did offer 
to remove the entry from Add/Remove Programs, since it couldn't actually 
do the uninstall.

> But heck, if you're going
> around deleting folders with funky names out of the windows boot
> directory, you should be handy with the registry.

Seems reasonable.

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