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Hi Loungers, Why has my Laptop so many files compared with my Desktop. Please wait for post #2 before replying.

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Thanks for waiting.

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how do the WinSxS folders compare between the two machines?

This is absolutely not a fair comparison in my mind. The Vista machine has 2 service packs out already. How do the clean install dates compare (not the last image refresh).

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If the Vista machine is running SP2, you may get somewhere googling the following: Windows Component Clean Tool (COMPCLN)

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I do not think it a fair comparison as well. Vista versus Win 7, 2 extra apps on Laptop, much larger used size (826 MB versus 556 MB) for apps. As mercyh states, more service packs, etc. It still appears you have enough free space available, even on the laptop, it appears you still have approx 1/3 of your total disk available. If you start having problems with available space on the laptop, look into a bigger HD. If you were comparing Vista to Vista or Win 7 to Win 7, then I would question what’s going on.

I would also question if one is set up to hibernate and the other is not. The hibersys file can get very large.

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I would read your question as being more academic then actually a problem. I think it is interesting but to me it is about what I would expect.

If you are into academic questions you could spend some time studying and understanding what is happening with WinSxS and you would come away with a much deeper understanding of how file systems work.

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I’m also wondering when each system was a new install (unless I missed that) adn how well maintained each is. That can make a difference as well. Either way, I’m struck by how few files each system has, hardly lived in at all! Several of my systems clear 1 million files and I don’t think I have any at less than 160,000. If everything is working well, it is all academic.

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Hi Loungers, Why has my Laptop so many files compared with my Desktop. Please wait for post #2 before replying.

Roderunner,
Hello… I can’t answer your question …but can provide you with a free tool (link) that will help you see where the problem is http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml the program is called “Tree Size Free” with it can help determine what is up with your PC Regards Fred

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Fred, Hello once again.

This is a new one for me. I have saved the link so when I have a few minutes I will check how mine looks. Thanks for the link. Ted

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Fred, Hello once again.

This is a new one for me. I have saved the link so when I have a few minutes I will check how mine looks. Thanks for the link. Ted

Ted ,Roderunner,
Hello… you can click on, the “Scan” tab and select any drive that is on your “OS”( as well as lots of other options ) Another note … you have to take ownership of some of the folders in order to see whats in them. (just thought to save Ya All some time) Regards Fred

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Fred, Great tool. Here is what I get:

Very informative. Thanks for the link. Ted

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Thanks to all for your replys up to post #11. I will answer them but not now as its 0110hrs local time.

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Thanks to all for your replys up to post #11. I will answer them but not now as its 0110hrs local time.

Get to bed, you deserve it. good night!

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how do the WinSxS folders compare between the two machines?
This is absolutely not a fair comparison in my mind. The Vista machine has 2 service packs out already. How do the clean install dates compare (not the last image refresh).

Where do I find WinSxS folders.

If the Vista machine is running SP2, you may get somewhere googling the following: Windows Component Clean Tool (COMPCLN)

I have used this tool.

I would also question if one is set up to hibernate and the other is not. The hibersys file can get very large.

Neither of my PC’s ‘sleep’ or hibernate at any time.

I’m also wondering when each system was a new install (unless I missed that) adn how well maintained each is. That can make a difference as well. Either way, I’m struck by how few files each system has, hardly lived in at all! Several of my systems clear 1 million files and I don’t think I have any at less than 160,000. If everything is working well, it is all academic.

Laptop clean installed within 7 days. Desktop approx. 1 month

Roderunner,
Hello… I can’t answer your question …but can provide you with a free tool that will hetp you see where the problem is http://www.jam-softw…are/index.shtml the program is called “Tree Size Free” with it can help determine what is up with your PC Regards Fred

Thank once again Fred, your posts are as welcome as rain in the desert.

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This is what Fred’s tool found.

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Where do I find WinSxS folders.

C:Windowswinsxs

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Thanks mercyh, it has 10378 files, non of which means anything to an elderly ???? like me.

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Thanks mercyh, it has 10378 files, non of which means anything to an elderly ???? like me.

Exactly the same on both machines ??? !!! ……

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Exactly the same on both machines ??? !!! ……

Hi mercyh, My LT is a Packard Bell running it own Vista Home Premium and has 10378 winsxs files. My DT is an HP Pavilion s7715.uk running a clean install upgrade of W7 and has 6682 files. Post #2 shows whats on each PC.

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Post #2 shows that you have about 60,000 more files on vista. In some cases WinSxS alone could show 60,000 files. The Win7 machine I am using to type this shows 30,000. (A lot of them aren’t actually files although you can’t tell which ones without some REAL digging)

TreeSize free is seeing only half as many files on the Win7 machine as the first tool you used, this may be due to permissions issues not letting the tool see them though. You might also want to look at this thread and check it again in a few weeks. According to that the Windows 7 machine may eventually get to 0……

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My winSxS folder has 10365 additional folders in it. Win 7 Ultimate. This linkhas an explanation of the winSxS folder and why it’s size changes. Since I try lots of different apps and install/uninstall regularly, mine indeed has increased in size.

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This is a new image using TreeSize tool to compare with last one taken as in post #15 which also shows a big difference in Free Space. Replying to the link in mercyh’s post.

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mercyh, I took your advice about learning winsxs files, kindly supplied by Ted Meyers.
–
To sum up this thread. If you had 2 identical PC’s, with empty hard drives, installed a full version of Vista Home Premium on one, take a note of number of files before and after updates were installed, then do the same on other PC with a full version of W7 Home Premium.
I realise both do not install the same programs. It would be an interesting test to see what percentage of files were added.

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mercyh, I took your advice about learning winsxs files, kindly supplied by Ted Meyers.
–
To sum up this thread. If you had 2 identical PC’s, with empty hard drives, installed a full version of Vista Home Premium on one, take a note of number of files before and after updates were installed, then do the same on other PC with a full version of W7 Home Premium.
I realise both do not install the same programs. It would be an interesting test to see what percentage of files were added.

Roderunner,
Hello… I can provide you with an answer to these questions .. However at this point i can only give you the raw data . ( compressed backup numbers) All examples have basically the same programs installed… Mirrors…. of each other.
1. Vista Home Premium …. All programs installed …No MS updates or patches, or “SP’s” 7.54 GB
2. Vista Home Premium … All Programs installed …All MS updates and Patches (to date) and SP-2 14.4GB

3. Windows 7 32 All Programs installed … no updates or patches … 6.28GB… (no windows old)
4. Windows 7 32 All Programs installed ….All patches and updates (to date) 7.86GB (no windows old)

5.Windows 7 64 All Programs installed …no patches or updates (with windows old) 14.6GB , data taken when first installed
6.Windows 7 64 All Programs installed …All patches and updates (with windows old) 14.5GB, data taken 2 days later… Don’t know why this is less in size ?
Thought this might be of some interest….but then again I’m really boring ! Regards Fred

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I get various results from using TreeSize Free. Sometimes it jives with the General Properties view and sometimes its way off. For instance TreeSize will say 181,000 files on one and Properties 183,000 (Win 7 admin mode), and an XP system I tried it out on returns 299,948 files for TreeSize while General Poperties bangs out 350,782 files. I had a similar 14.5 % difference in another XP system (203,791 vs. 174207) and an even greater difference on another relatively new Win 7 install (104,751 vs. 76,586), a whopping 26.8%!!

This information can only mean one thing; I was better off being blissfully unaware of the details!

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I get various results from using TreeSize Free. Sometimes it jives with the General Properties view and sometimes its way off. For instance TreeSize will say 181,000 files on one and Properties 183,000 (Win 7 admin mode), and an XP system I tried it out on returns 299,948 files for TreeSize while General Poperties bangs out 350,782 files. I had a similar 14.5 % difference in another XP system (203,791 vs. 174207) and an even greater difference on another relatively new Win 7 install (104,751 vs. 76,586), a whopping 26.8%!!

This information can only mean one thing; I was better off being blissfully unaware of the details!

I agree, most of what we are learning here make no difference in our computing lives. Perhaps I have lost interest in this thread, although it is informative to know what goes into winSxS, how does this affect what I’m doing, not much.

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This information can only mean one thing; I was better off being blissfully unaware of the details!

Someone once said ‘knowledge even a little, can be a dangerous thing’

I agree, most of what we are learning here make no difference in our computing lives. Perhaps I have lost interest in this thread, although it is informative to know what goes into winSxS, how does this affect what I’m doing, not much.

See above

Roderunner,
Hello… I can provide you with an answer to these questions .. However at this point i can only give you the raw data . ( compressed backup numbers) All examples have basically the same programs installed… Mirrors…. of each other.
1. Vista Home Premium …. All programs installed …No MS updates or patches, or “SP’s” 7.54 GB
2. Vista Home Premium … All Programs installed …All MS updates and Patches (to date) and SP-2 14.4GB

3. Windows 7 32 All Programs installed … no updates or patches … 6.28GB… (no windows old)
4. Windows 7 32 All Programs installed ….All patches and updates (to date) 7.86GB (no windows old)

5.Windows 7 64 All Programs installed …no patches or updates (with windows old) 14.6GB , data taken when first installed
6.Windows 7 64 All Programs installed …All patches and updates (with windows old) 14.5GB, data taken 2 days later… Don’t know why this is less in size ?
Thought this might be of some interest….but then again I’m really boring ! Regards Fred

It proves just how how much repair work was needed on Vista. It will be interesting to see how W7 is in a few years time but will I expect be forgotten.

Thanks to all for your input.

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For what it’s worth, I have a friend who got a Vista Home Premium 64-bit laptop, and he noticed that during the first two weeks, the hard drive free space was being eaten up at a prodigious pace. Then it shrank back. It looked like the areas which are referenced in this thread were not being well managed by Vista-64.

My new Toshiba Satellite runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, and no such expansion has taken place. Granted, I am only adding programs at this point, and I haven’t done much real work on the Toshiba yet, but removing OEM trialware and adding my choices of programs, and some pretty heavy-duty web surfing, have not increased the used space on my hard drive — not even temporarily.

I conclude that maybe Windows 7 is doing a better job of 64-bit housekeeping than Vista-64 does. That seems to be the only constant in all these variations. Cleaning did not make any difference in my friend’s Vista laptop, and cleaning seems almost superfluous in my Toshiba. So there seems to be a major difference between Vista and Windows 7 in the handling of cleanup and removal of obsolete WoW and WinSxS data, among other areas. I hope this helps put this rather tedious thread to bed.

-- rc primak

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I hope this helps put this rather tedious thread to bed.

I totally agree. Thanks to all for your input. Notifications of replys are stopped.

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I totally agree. Thanks to all for your input. Notifications of replys are stopped.

As a novice or dummy may be a better explanation of myself. I totally agree with Ted Myers, ” . . most of what we are learning here make no difference . . ,” but; only with this part of his statement as quoted. It will make some changes for me as I will NOT do any more downloading and testing of any software that probably will be removed. I will only do that for software I feel would enhance my use of my computer and if anyone else wants to test any of that other software that I do not want on my system . . . they can do their own testing. I had been doing some testing to see what the software would do for others and then inform them what was found. With this Windows folder, as I call it, that keeps growing to keep my system working with forward updated as well as backward down-dated software is out the window. I am retired and cannot afford additional H/Ds to keep up with this growing folder. I will wait to see if the folder reduces naturally or maybe find someone or some thing that can assist in reducing that size.

This has been a very informative thread and feel more of the users of Vista (barf, hack, cough, gag) and Win7 should have this as required reading, not to educate them on how to use or clean this folder, but; to make them aware of what could happen if they continue the method of operations with earlier editions of Windows. Yes, I feel this is some what a good thing, but; MS should have a feature within this growing ‘nightmare’ to control it so we are not burdened with our systems LYING to us about how much disc space is available. MS should teach Explorer how to read the actual size of each file and record that for future reference.

Thank you for this very interesting discussion the contributors have provided, I have learned much,

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As a novice or dummy may be a better explanation of myself. I totally agree with Ted Myers, ” . . most of what we are learning here make no difference . . ,” but; only with this part of his statement as quoted. It will make some changes for me as I will NOT do any more downloading and testing of any software that probably will be removed. I will only do that for software I feel would enhance my use of my computer and if anyone else wants to test any of that other software that I do not want on my system . . . they can do their own testing. I had been doing some testing to see what the software would do for others and then inform them what was found. With this Windows folder, as I call it, that keeps growing to keep my system working with forward updated as well as backward down-dated software is out the window. I am retired and cannot afford additional H/Ds to keep up with this growing folder. I will wait to see if the folder reduces naturally or maybe find someone or some thing that can assist in reducing that size.

This has been a very informative thread and feel more of the users of Vista (barf, hack, cough, gag) and Win7 should have this as required reading, not to educate them on how to use or clean this folder, but; to make them aware of what could happen if they continue the method of operations with earlier editions of Windows. Yes, I feel this is some what a good thing, but; MS should have a feature within this growing ‘nightmare’ to control it so we are not burdened with our systems LYING to us about how much disc space is available. MS should teach Explorer how to read the actual size of each file and record that for future reference.

Thank you for this very interesting discussion the contributors have provided, I have learned much,

Hey, don’t let this stop all the playing you wish to do. Just do it in a virtual machine and you can return it to any state you wish. Virtual machines are the ‘Ants Pants” to quote fellow Lounger PT from another thread.

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