Any solution to Vistas ever growing windows folder??

F

freeworldspecie

Recruit
I have tried at many places.....but even MS forums dont seem to have ansswer to this.

According to them, The growing Windows folder in Vista ( and win Windows 7) is because of winsxs folder whcih is not a limitation but a 'feature' which helps windows for backward compatibility.

well the fact is that this 'feature ' of windows is doing me no good as I just have one version of windows, but occupying almost 17 gb space in my windows folder.

I have had to repartition my c drive twice cuz of this which has now caused some Blue Screens , but fortunately windows hasnt crashed yet.

Anyone who has experienced the same thing and can help me reuce the space. expanding the C drive with partition manager is not going to be a solution always.

Jaihind
 
My Win 7 installation has a winsxs folder which is only 4.4GB in size. I'm not sure what is supposed to be the "normal" size.
Some info about this folder can be had here: The Secret Of Windows 7 / Vista Winsxs Folder.

Some tips from here:TechTips - WinSxS Folder Cleanup - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com

Now the tools I found to help fix this issue, and by fix I really mean delay the size getting to big for the hard drive.

The first tool is for users who have Vista SP1 and people have reportedly gotten upwards of 3GB's back from it (If you have SP1 integrated this will not work, also if you run this tool you will not be able to remove any updates or service packs). The tool is found in your System32 folder and it's called "vsp1cln.exe", to use the tool, do the following:

1. Open My Computer

2. Double click C:\ (or the drive letter Windows is installed on)

3. Double click the Windows folder

4. Double Click the System32 folder

5. Find the vsp1cln.exe file and right click it

6. Choose Run as administrator

7. Let the program run, it will clean all redundant files out of the WinSxS folder

8. Close everything and check your WinSxS folder and see if you got any space back, the space gained will differ depending on your system, installed programs, etc...so you may not get 3GB's back.

There is another tool for users who have Vista with SP2, the "compcln.exe" file that is found in the System32 folder can help you to greatly reduce the size of your WinSxS folder (again running this tool will make it impossible to remove updates and service packs, so make sure you are happy with your updates or you will be reinstalling Windows). To use the file do the following:

1. Open My Computer

2. Double click C:\ (or the drive letter Windows is installed on)

3. Double click the Windows folder

4. Double Click the System32 folder

5. Find the compcln.exe file and right click it

6. Choose Run as administrator

7. Let the program run, it will clean all redundant files out of the WinSxS folder

8. Close everything and check your WinSxS folder and see if you got any space back, the space gained will differ depending on your system, installed programs, etc...so you may not get 3GB's back.
Click to expand...

Also, from what I read online, it helps a little if you uninstall any useless application that you have in your PC.
 
The best solution is to get rid of Vista (Na Rahega Baans na Bajegi Baansuri meaning get rid of the root cause).

Honestly Vista is the crappiest Windows ever. I was more than happy to get back to the tried and tested Windows XP (call me old fashioned or wateva). Get rid of it and go back to XP or move up to Win7.
 
^ LOL, you want him to downgrade to Xp. My winsxs folder which is also 4.4GB in size. I am using win-7 from the past 1.5 years and have various softwares installed.
 
See if disabling "system restore" and deleting the existing checkpoints helps with the space. Of course you lose the restore checkpoints themselves. And I'm not sure if they are stored in Windows/WinSxS folder or elsewhere.
 
^^ I don't think that would help. AFAIK, system restore information is stored in hidden folders called "System Volume Information" in each partition. That was the case in XP. Not sure about Vista and Win7, but I know that both use something called as shadow copies for restore points. And these occupy the space that was allotted for system restore when it was enabled for the first time. That doesn't come in winsxs folder.
From what I read, winsxs folder contains multiple copies of files compatible with different windows versions, to enable backward compatibility as mentioned by the OP.
 
Back
Top