Vista - Winsxs folder?

Whats this folder for it contains about 8gigs of data in it and its take all most of my os partition.

never mind i looked it up cant do much to help for the size of it, any one know of a good software to edit the size of my windows partition, I cant use the one in windows as its my first partition and I have to much data to lose if I remove my second partition.

Hi Xephion,

Winsxs is known as "Windows Side by Side" Its used as the compatibility store for windows DLLs and allows windows to run programs built for previous versions of its operating systems...

Gparted is a good open-source and free partition manager

Steven

it might be a good one but it seems its for linux not windows...

Hi Xephion,


Gparted can format & partition Microsoft Windows NTFS Volumes, It uses a Linux-base for creating a LiveCD Graphical User Interface for managing partitions for many different Operating Systems including Linux/Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista

Steven

Ah thanks! I was at work and coudlnt do it remotly but got it working last night, its says its going to take 26 hours to complet the change

how many changes did you make?

2 decrease the partition of D and encrease C, partition D was 911Gig and has about 500G in it. so 26 hours :S

think its worth me posting this for future users who wish to learn a little more about winsxs and how it works

The Winsxs folder, stores multiple copies of dll's in order to let multiple applications run in Windows without any compatibility problem. If you browse inside, you will see what look like a lot of duplicate dlls, each having the same name. These are actually, different versions of the same files which are being stored; as different programs may require different versions. In short, Winsxs, which stands for 'Windows Side By Side', is Vista's native assembly cache. Libraries which are being by multiple applications are stored there. This feature was first introduced, in Windows ME and was considered as Microsoft's solution to the so-called 'dll hell' issues that plagued Windows 9x.


In Winsxs the 'backup' folder is the largest as can be noticed in the image below.

Again, as can be seen in the image below, in the Winsxs folder, the 'Other' File types takes the bulk of the space. These primarily consist of .imd, .ngr, .csd, .dll, .dll.mui, .exe and such other file types.

In Vista, there isn't a 'dllcache' folder and nor can you find the 'i386' folder, where the system caches (like in XP) all it's source modules. It is this WinSxS folder which stores the shared components of side-by-side applications. These files can be multiple versions of the same assembly or application. Every side-by-side assembly has a unique identity. One of the attributes of the assembly identity is its version. "Side-by-side assemblies are used by the operating system as fundamental units of naming, binding, versioning, deployment, and configuration. The Winsxs folder includes all manifests, optional components and 3rd party Win32 files".

But, why so many subfolders, and why keep so many different versions of the same dll, exe or other files ?

As mentioned, Windows stores the old dll's and library components in the WinSxS folder. Now if a newer version of this file is a part of the OS, but a particular application requires a particular older version for running, then the older version from the winsxs folder will be used, leaving the newer version in its present place, for other applications which may require it.
So obviously you cannot delete this directory or move it elsewhere. Nor is it advisable to delete anything here, as such a step could probably make your applications un-workable or even break your system! If you have many applications installed, you can expect to have a jumbo sized winsxs folder.
If you delete components from the WinSxS folder like the manifets or the assemblies, etc, you could be in trouble. Each system would react differently. What may work for one could break another! For instance, if you install a program that requires that particular assembly, which you may have deleted, then that program will just not run! Compressing the folder is also a no-no, as it could cause problems during WindowsUpdates or while installing a Hotfix. The safest way to clean it, is by simply uninstalling applications which you don't require. However, this too is not fool proof, as many applications still leave behind their files here, since they may be shared between other applications. So the probability of dud unused dll's being left behind is quite high.
And if you are into trying out new software or installing and uninstalling frequently, you may notice that your winsxs size is indeed large, as Vista will store multiple copies of these dll files, in order to let multiple applications without compatibility problem.

Ripbox,

The images have 404 errors, can you fix them up