Windows 7 Free Space

[mpg187]

I am downloading a big Torrent for a TV Show and have like 1 GB free and need about 1 GB more. In Windows XP there was a way to uninstall certain features, but in Windows 7 I only see turn on and off Windows Features.

Is there an easy way to temporarily get free space. My C:\Windows folder is like 5 GB, I am sure there is something in there I can safely delete.

I never use Windows Media Center or the messenger that comes with Windows, is there a way to remove those and get some easy free space?

When the Torrent is done I will probably move it somewhere else, but for now it's on C:\, I tried deleting temporary files but still need more space...

[Spartan Erik]

Tried deleting system restore points?

Tried going through C:/Windows/Web/Wallpaper to delete any high res wallpapers you don't use anymore?

Tried uninstalling programs you no longer need?

Tried sorting through presumably gigs and gigs of movies/music you don't ever watch/listen to?

You could always zip up a bunch of large files/docs, upload it to rapidshare, and download it back whenever you need it.

[primexx]

restore points take up a lot of space.

i assume you've already ran disk cleanup.

also check ProgramData, there's a lot of stuff that program installers left behind but you don't actually need anymore. Sometimes it adds up to a gig or two. but don't just indiscriminately delete everything, if you're not sure then leave it there.

[wrack]

Use DiskMax.

[Fraud OS 11]

Eventually your Windows 7 drive will get full as it eats more disk space due to the super-bloated servicing store (C:\Windows\WinSxS).

[Tim Dawg]

Eventually your Windows 7 drive will get full as it eats more disk space due to the super-bloated servicing store (C:\Windows\WinSxS).

Amen to that. I hate how big WinSxs is on some of my Win2k8 boxes let alone my Win7 boxes. I have one 2k8 server with a WinSxs of over 20GB. What a freakin' waste. And that's after I did the service pack clean up!

[LightShadow]

Backup files to External hard drives etc.

You could:

Burn Files to DVD/CD's -> Delete them from the computer - (Then you could re-add them later)

Backup to External Hard Drive/USB -> Delete from Computer - (Could re-add later)

Use Online Cloud Storage (Dropbox,Live SkyDrive etc) -> Delete from Computer - (Could re-add later)

____

Other things:

Uninstall unsed programs - Like OEM stuff,browsers you don't use etc.

Use Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag

But, Windows files don't remove as they are needed and don't take up much space. With all my programs installed and windows files. I have used about 25gb of my hard drive, Excluding files. So not recommended to remove anything from there.

[soldier1st]

all new oses require more space. you could put Ubuntu on it as it requires far less disk space than 7 does.

[mpg187]

@TechDudeGeorge

I have another partition I can put files on, but I already put all the files I could, the only space I am using it for this Torrent and installed programs and the OS itself.

@soldier1st

I have Ubuntu on here too, but I need Windows for this game (The developer doens't know how to code properly so it works on Linux) and I already started the Torrent on my bigger Windows Partition.

As of now I have 642 MB free but need like 800.

Are there any files on C:\Windows\WinSxS that are safe to delete?

[Phenom II]

Turn off system restore and turn off the page file until the torrent is copied someplace else, that will deff give you well over the space you need

[Berserk87]

I used to have this issue a lot, go browse through other things you've downloaded or go look into your old files/folders for duplicates or things you don't need anymore.

I could go free up 20Gb on my hard drive right now if I wanted to, I don't know what would be deleted but I know I have lots of junk if I go looking.

[primexx]

@TechDudeGeorge

I have another partition I can put files on, but I already put all the files I could, the only space I am using it for this Torrent and installed programs and the OS itself.

@soldier1st

I have Ubuntu on here too, but I need Windows for this game (The developer doens't know how to code properly so it works on Linux) and I already started the Torrent on my bigger Windows Partition.

As of now I have 642 MB free but need like 800.

Are there any files on C:\Windows\WinSxS that are safe to delete?

no.

[Hani]

Turn off hibernation.

[+BudMan MVC]

Eventually your Windows 7 drive will get full as it eats more disk space due to the super-bloated servicing store (C:\Windows\WinSxS).

Amen to that. I hate how big WinSxs is on some of my Win2k8 boxes let alone my Win7 boxes. I have one 2k8 server with a WinSxs of over 20GB. What a freakin' waste. And that's after I did the service pack clean up!

How exactly are you viewing the size of the winsxs folder? Are you taking into account they are all hardlinks?

So no the winsxs folder is not going to eat your hard disk space, and no its not super-blocked..

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/11/19/disk-space.aspx

"In practice, nearly every file in the WinSxS directory is a “hard link” to the physical files elsewhere on the system—meaning that the files are not actually in this directory. For instance in the WinSxS there might be a file called advapi32.dll that takes up >700K however what’s being reported is a hard link to the actual file that lives in the Windows\System32, and it will be counted twice (or more) when simply looking at the individual directories from Windows Explorer."

'While it’s true that WinSxS does consume some disk space by simply existing, and there are a number of metadata files, folders, manifests, and catalogs in it, it’s significantly smaller than reported. The actual amount of storage consumed varies, but on a typical system it is about 400MB. While that is not small, we think the robustness provided for servicing is a reasonable tradeoff."

[ViZioN]

Why not stop the torrent, move the files to another drive with more space and restart? It'll re-check the current files when you re-add the torrent to the client and start downloading again.

[Hani]

How exactly are you viewing the size of the winsxs folder? Are you taking into account they are all hardlinks?

So no the winsxs folder is not going to eat your hard disk space, and no its not super-blocked..

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/11/19/disk-space.aspx

"In practice, nearly every file in the WinSxS directory is a “hard link” to the physical files elsewhere on the system—meaning that the files are not actually in this directory. For instance in the WinSxS there might be a file called advapi32.dll that takes up >700K however what’s being reported is a hard link to the actual file that lives in the Windows\System32, and it will be counted twice (or more) when simply looking at the individual directories from Windows Explorer."

'While it’s true that WinSxS does consume some disk space by simply existing, and there are a number of metadata files, folders, manifests, and catalogs in it, it’s significantly smaller than reported. The actual amount of storage consumed varies, but on a typical system it is about 400MB. While that is not small, we think the robustness provided for servicing is a reasonable tradeoff."

Repped as I never heard this before. However, does that mean Windows reports incorrect free space?

[Fraud OS 11]

How exactly are you viewing ......reasonable tradeoff."

Yeah I know that but is there a single tool that lets you view the actual size minus the hard links? I don't believe what they say (close to 400 MB). That's the size upon fresh install. By installing tons of security updates and hotfixes, the size is definitely over 2 GB.

[+BudMan MVC]

To be honest I have never looked into it that much, I fail to understand the obsession some people have with what size their OS is using?? And look to delete stuff from their OS to make space??? Thats just nuts if you ask me.. If you don't have space on your OS drive, I am quite sure its programs you have installed, or just simple temp file or restore points taking up the space, maybe a dump file sure..

WTF would you be looking to save space by deleting the inner workings of the OS for?

If you are running out of space, then get a new HD.. They are CHEAP!!! Or delete the crap you have put on your system drive -- other than the OS ;)

Working with links, there is this extension you can use

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

Allows you to easy see that pretty much every single file in the winsxs is a hardlink

Now a google came across this tool..

http://www.heise.de/software/download/cttruesize/50272

But its in German (which mine is really bad).. But from what I take of it, it can be used to report the size of your hardlinks

So for example on my system my winsxs folder shows that its 6.45GB, using ctts shows me that the windows dir has 4.2 GB of hardlinks -- so if you subtract that from what explorer shows me, I would say mine is like 2 something GB?

--

Brutto:

73228 Dateien, 15553 Ordner

17.1 GB (18.381.652.803 Bytes)

Hardlinks:

19264 Dateien

4.20 GB (4.516.521.161 Bytes)

Komprimiert:

12 Dateien

Unkomprimiert: 30.4 MB (31.951.339 Bytes)

Komprimiert: 9.68 MB (10.152.244 Bytes)

Durchschnittliche Kompressionsrate: 68.2%

Alternate Data Streams:

8 Streams in 8 Dateien und 0 Ordnern

208 bytes (208 Bytes)

Total:

53972 Dateien und Streams, 15553 Ordner

12.8 GB (13.843.332.755 Bytes)

Inklusive Cluster-Verschnitt: 12.9 GB (13.954.134.016 Bytes)

--

But to be honest -- Still not understanding the why anyone would care?? Your talking a few GB here, which are pennies!! The current price of GBs of storage is like .065.. I can pickup a 1TB drive for $65 on newegg, so that 1000 GB, so that $0.065 per GB.. Who gives a rates ass if my OS dir is 18GB or 13GB ??

If Im looking to clear up some space -- OK.. I am quite sure there is way more space to be had on the drive without dicking with the inner workings of the OS to scrape up a few gig..

A good one I have seen in this thread is to turn off hibernation.. With most users have 4+ GB on their systems now a days your looking at freeing up 4GB with a simple

powercfg -h off

My point was that the winsxs folder is HARDLINKS to files outside the winsxs folder... So its not REALLY as big as people think it is. And you should not be deleting anything in it anyway! ;)

[Hani]

I agree about what you said, but Explorer should report the correct space used as it makes many people confused. Also, obsession with disk space has returned because of SSDs, so it is actually relevant.

One last thing, if Explorer reports incorrect space used in winsxs, doesn't it mean that Explorer reports incorrect free space?

[mpg187]

Turn off system restore and turn off the page file until the torrent is copied someplace else, that will deff give you well over the space you need

Oh yeah the page file and hibernation, I forgot about those... Turning off hibernation would give a few Gigs, only problem is I use that feature lots (But going a while without it to get space would be a good option). Although I managed to squeeze it in...

I used to have this issue a lot, go browse through other things you've downloaded or go look into your old files/folders for duplicates or things you don't need anymore.

I could go free up 20Gb on my hard drive right now if I wanted to, I don't know what would be deleted but I know I have lots of junk if I go looking.

I have already dont that and still was short

Why not stop the torrent, move the files to another drive with more space and restart? It'll re-check the current files when you re-add the torrent to the client and start downloading again.

That would just take too long, the torrent is already on the computer I use the most so it got done faster by being on this one...

To be honest I have never looked into it that much, I fail to understand the obsession some people have with what size their OS is using?? And look to delete stuff from their OS to make space???...

WTF would you be looking to save space by deleting the inner workings of the OS for?

Because I have freed space everywhere else and desperately needed a little more and that was the only way to get it. And I was not deleting the OS, just any unneeded files that were eating up space.

If you are running out of space, then get a new HD.. They are CHEAP!!!

That's beside the point, doesn't matter how much the hard drive is, I would then have to reinstall my OSes and move all my files over and the whole point of me freeing space is to I don't have to move any files over, especially not the torrent.

[+BudMan MVC]

"Also, obsession with disk space has returned because of SSDs, so it is actually relevant."

I agree with you to a point about SSDs -- but really 32GB for your OS should be fine, etc. Dicking with winsxs dir is not where you could find much of anything - since they are pretty much all hardlinks.

Im look at at my windows dir and its 16.7 GB... Say have a 32GB SSD.. should should be good without dicking with winsxs folder ;)

As to what explorer reports.. I agree they should make it clear to normal users that the space is not really being taken up by the folder, and then would remove all the nonsense with people wanting to delete **** out of it ;)

As to it misreporting freespace??? Have not looked into that deep as I have said, I don't understand the obsession with a GB here or there, its meaningless when drives being bought are 500GB, 1TB shoot the 2.5TB are common and 3TB are right around the corner of being reasonable in price.. Why any one would be worried about a few GB here and there I just don't get it..

I understand with a SSD disk, but you would only put your OS there and a few critical files, your not storing your video library there ;) And looking to clear up some space under your OS -- I would look to stuff like trimming your page file or hibernation file -- since these by default can be quite large these days where your talking about 4+GB ram, etc.

Think about it on a 32GB SSD, with 4G+ ram -- a 4GB hibernation file and a say 4GB page file is half the disk ;) Sure you can get buy with say a 1GB page and since your machine boots up so fast, why not just shut it completely off vs hibernate ;)

Without access to the users drive I can not say where he could free up some space, but when you start looking to system dirs like winsxs for a few 100MB -- its time to get a bigger disk!! No matter how much it might pain you to have have to image your drive to a bigger one --- oh man how will you ever get that hour back??? I would be a LARGE sum of money that you have spent more time trying to find ways to clear up space than if you would of just dropped $100 and got a bigger drive and imaged your OS over.. Take you all of an hour maybe to do something like that -- your freaking torrent can wait til next week when you have the space to download such a file ;) heheh

[Fraud OS 11]

ctts shows the gross size as 6 GB and size of hardlinks as ~ 1GB so total size would still be 5 GB. (I have installed a lot of hotfixes, not just security updates). Far from 400 MB which would never be in everyday usage. Btw here's a nice blog (blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/) explaining the Windows Vista/7 servicing stack and just about everything about it.

[+BudMan MVC]

And what dir did you run the command on?? Run it on c:\windows, not the winsxs dir

When I run it on just winsxs it shows only like 174MB hardlinks.. Keep in mind the hard links are to files in other windows files, etc. So I think for the tool to work correctly you need to be scanning the parent folder that will contain all the links and the original files.

Ok did a little test about the freespace thing.. that anyone can do for themselves.. So I picked a large file 1.5GB that I could create lots of Hardlinks too that would easy show a difference if file space on the disk.

So here is before created any hardlinks

I then created a bunch of hardlinks to the file in c:\temp to files in c:\temp\hardlink. As you can see the folder size thinks there is almost 9 GB worth of data there.

But after, look my actual sized used/free has not changed on my disk.

So to test ctts, the folder structure is like this

c:\temp\

--> real 1.5 GB file

c:\temp\hardlink

--> hardlinks to file

If I run on hardlink folder directly get this

Which you can clearly see is not quite right, since there are 5 hardlinks there.. But if I run it on c:\temp then it shows all the hardlinks

And shows the correct sizing of the hardlinks this way as well. So I would suggest you run the tool on your windows dir for better results.

Edited July 6, 2010 by BudMan

[Hani]

But does it work on winsxs? I've measured the used space of windows dir it's 11.4GB, and that of winsxs is 5.66GB. If I select everything in the windows dir except for winsx, it's 5.72GB. So isn't it actually counting the used space by winsxs, thus affecting the free space of the HDD?

[kjx]

Just use DiskMax. It recovers 4GB on average on the first run. I know ways to make it recover more but I'm saving that for a redesigned version.

In any case, I'm the author and if you have questions, I'm always around here.

(If you want an unbiased review, check out what editors at Download.com have to say: http://download.cnet.com/DiskMax/3000-18512_4-10912587.html)