Patch Tuesday Surface Update - Now I have tons of free space - 2.5 gb to ~9

By spudtrooper
in Hardware Hangout

 Share

Recommended Posts

Veteran

spudtrooper

Posted
Posted

32GB Surface here. Did the Patch Tuesday Updates last night and went from 2.5gb free space (moved recovery partition to USB to get that!) and after updating I now have 9.9 GB of space left. My tablet is heavily used by 3 users with tons of apps/email/web surfing - did Microsoft consolidate the App storage space to share between users? fix some renegade caching that may have caused some apps to grow or fix something with un-installs to actually clean them up? Either way, i'm happy! Am I the only one that got not just some space back but GIGS of space back. I did double check that compression wasn't enabled either - curious if that helps/hurts performance on these things - anyone try that?

Veteran

neo158

Posted
Posted

I noticed that as well. Nice to see that Microsoft are doing everything they can to fix the issues with Surface, I also noticed that the performance hit when Surface runs low on space is fixed as well. Some people are just impatient though and expect it to be perfect straight away.

Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Not Surface-specific, but some users were affected by a problem where cached app packages or updates were not cleaned up properly. One of the January updates fixes this problem and cleaned up anything erroneously left behind by the bug before.

Grand Master

Orange Battery

Posted
Posted

I noticed that as well. Nice to see that Microsoft are doing everything they can to fix the issues with Surface, I also noticed that the performance hit when Surface runs low on space is fixed as well. Some people are just impatient though and expect it to be perfect straight away.

In all fairness, its not like MS is new to the OS market. I would kind of expect it to be past the stage of taking up so much space, at least by the time they launch.

Veteran

neo158

Posted
Posted

In all fairness, its not like MS is new to the OS market. I would kind of expect it to be past the stage of taking up so much space, at least by the time they launch.

I'm not going to disagree with you but this is a bug that's been fixed by Microsoft relating to cached app packages and updates that weren't cleared up properly as Brandon mentions in the post above yours.

Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Seems a bit of an understatement to call it a caching bug when it returned over half of our available space on the device. :rolleyes:

I don't understand what you mean. The impact on a specific user doesn't change the nature of the bug. If you hit the bug and did a lot of app installs/updates, the cumulative size of those downloaded packages stuck in the cache can be quite large.

So is this just surface specific or does it extend to Rt and 8 in general through some other non-firmware patch?

This was already answered in this very thread. This was not a firmware change.

Grand Master

Dashel

Posted
Posted

I don't understand what you mean. The impact on a specific user doesn't change the nature of the bug. If you hit the bug and did a lot of app installs/updates, the cumulative size of those downloaded packages stuck in the cache can be quite large.

Except I don't know anyone that had ever installed anywhere near the size of the freed space. (ie I had about 2GB of apps installed and still got 8+GB back. On our other one that is shared by two people, it had maybe 500MB of apps per user and still saw the exact same 8GB+ returned space.) ie use of the device seems to have little to no bearing on the amount returned or we wouldn't have all seen roughly the same amount.

Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
Except I don't know anyone that had ever installed anywhere near the size of the freed space. (ie I had about 2GB of apps installed and still got 8+GB back. On our other one that is shared by two people, it had maybe 500MB of apps per user and still saw the exact same 8GB+ returned space.) ie use of the device seems to have little to no bearing on the amount returned or we wouldn't have all seen roughly the same amount.

How are you judging the size of installed apps? Are you counting updates? (including the inbox apps?) Oh, and their dependencies (i.e. VC++ libraries, etc).

The other thing to remember is that the system cleans up things like WU updates and rollback data on a regular basis (i.e. every 10 days). So it may have happened that you saw the effect of that at the same time.

  • 2 weeks later...
Mentor

SharpGreen

Posted
Posted

This thread made me realize something something else.

Isn't the Surface(or rather Windows8/RT tablets) the only one to natively offer proper multi user support.

No. Android 4.2 added native multi-user support to tablet versions of the OS.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Dbrand thought they could get away with this Steam Machine case, Valve disagreed

      By ZipZapRap · Posted

      Didn’t Dbrand once complain that Casetify was ripping off their designs a well? seems pretty bad of them to try and get around Valve’s copyright this way with that in mind.
    • Dbrand thought they could get away with this Steam Machine case, Valve disagreed

      By David Uzondu · Posted

      Dbrand thought they could get away with this Steam Machine case, Valve disagreed by David Uzondu Image via Dbrand Dbrand has cancelled its highly anticipated Companion Cube enclosure for the Valve Steam Machine, which it teased back in November of last year with a concept render and sign-up page, because it did not ask Valve for permission first before manufacturing the case. According to Dbrand, it took the "backwards approach" of building the product first before asking for permission from the copyright holder. Seven months of work went into the project, requiring over a thousand engineering hours from the design team. Workers developed forty-four sets of injection molding tools, making a unique mold for each sub-component of the crate. When the Companion Cube went live on Monday last week, it, according to Dbrand, quickly became the second-fastest-selling product in the company's fifteen-year history, racking up orders for hundreds of thousands of units. Customers eagerly bought the $129.95 deluxe edition or the bare-bones $99.95 version, which the manufacturer cheekily branded as the "Poverty Cube". It was around this time that the legal eagles at Valve descended on the accessory maker with a formal demand. The developer pointed out that the iconic block design remains protected intellectual property from the game Portal, so unlicensed sales had to stop. Dbrand said that all its pleas to salvage the project with the Valve team, including proposals to run a properly licensed release under official terms "with their blessing", fell on deaf ears, so it had no choice but to obey and remove every trace of the product from the internet. If you bought the enclosure, the company said that banks will process your refund by the end of this week, but if it still hasn't arrived in your account by then, you should not hesitate to contact support. The Steam Machine itself is a high-performance console that Valve designed directly to bring PC gaming into the living room. It was announced on 12th November 2025 (the same day Dbrand announced the Cube) and runs on the Linux-based SteamOS, the same OS that powers the Steam Deck. As for the price, due to the shortage of memory and storage chips, the hardware cost landed much higher than people were expecting, starting at $1,049 for the 512 model (without a controller) or $1,128 with the new gamepad. The premium 2 TB model pushes those prices even higher, selling at $1,349 for the standalone console and hitting $1,428 if you want the bundle.
    • Politically funny images of the World

      By +Edouard · Posted

    • The official Funny Pictures thread

      By +Edouard · Posted

    • TCL's Bang & Olufsen soundbar is 40% off on Amazon

      By kaedosan · Posted

      It's listed #399.99 on Amazon, per your link. It's not $299.99.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Rookie
      Almohandis went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Apprentice
      jahara21 went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Reacting Well
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      BA the Curmudgeon earned a badge
      One Year In

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      534
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      264
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      148
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      97
    5. 5
      macoman
      58
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!