C:\windows\winsxs Folder Size 13.5 GB

SlickJTA

New Member
I downloaded WinDirStat because I felt like my hard drive space was just disappearing. My hard drive capacity is 142GB. I bring this up because I only had about 5GB left to work with. I cleaned it up pretty well getting rid of a lot of old temp files and some other stuff. I now have about 40GB of free disk space. I've been reading the forums and everybody seems to be saying not to remove any files from winsxs. I feel like 13.5GB is a lot considering people think that their same folder being 4gb is a lot. is there any way at all that I can clean this up without breaking applications?
 

My Computer

Hello and welcome to the Vista Forums!

I have got quite a lot of say! First and foremost, that size is incorrect! The Windows Side by Side configuration stores a lot of duplicate files, exactly the same. However, the other copies are only hard links to the first copy, and don't take up any additional space. Those first copies may not even be in there anyway, and may point to somewhere else again!

Hard links are used to link these folders. These are far more robust than shortcuts or symbolic links. They show as the full size in Windows Explorer or WinDirStat. My point is that your file size is not 12GB. Microsoft always quote 400MB of actual data taking up space as manifests, first files, etc. etc. Your folder is quite large, so perhaps you are more around the 600MB line.

You can get some more general information here: Demystifying the WinSxS directory in Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003/2008 - Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

Sadly, you cannot delete any of it, and it is very difficult to shrink. The best you can do is run vsp1cln from a Command Prompt to remove some pre-SP1 stuff. Note that you can now no longer uninstall SP1, although this shouldn't matter too much, and you cannot then get pre-SP1 hotfix corruption replacement files out of it either, although that should matter even less.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask!

Richard
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 420
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHz
    Motherboard
    Stock Dell 0TP406
    Memory
    4 gb (DDR2 800) 400MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 3870 (512 MBytes)
    Sound Card
    Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 x Dell 2007FP and 1 x (old) Sonic flat screen
    Screen Resolution
    1600 x 1200 and 1280 x 1204
    Hard Drives
    1 x 640Gb (SATA 300)
    Western Digital: WDC WD6400AAKS-75A7B0

    1 x 1Tb (SATA 600)
    Western Digital: Caviar Black, SATA 6GB/S, 64Mb cache, 8ms
    Western Digital: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 ATA Device
    PSU
    Stock PSU - 375W
    Case
    Dell XPS 420
    Cooling
    Stock Fan
    Keyboard
    Dell Bluetooth
    Mouse
    Advent Optical ADE-WG01 (colour change light up)
    Internet Speed
    120 kb/s
    Other Info
    ASUS USB 3.0 5Gbps/SATA 6Gbps - PCI-Express Combo Controller Card (U3S6)

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
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