Bite me, WinSXS directory

Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
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I am omnipresent
My laptop's 80GB X25-M is full.

There isn't that much stuff on that laptop. Office. VMware Player (the VMs are on another drive). Windows 7. This is the one without SP1, for what it's worth.

But for some reason, I have 65GB winsxs folder.

Linux doesn't do this shit to people.
 
I'm still not reading any good explanations of why that directory grows so large to begin with, or what might be impacted in the future if I do just delete all of it.
 
You mentioned it, and I didn't know what the folder did so I researched it a bit. From what I can tell the folder is used to store all localized copies of any DLL. So every time a new install installs its own copy of a DLL (that is different than a standard Win7 DLL) that is where it will get stored. So yes, it will grow over time and just deleting stuff, may cause issues with specific applications properly running.

They made a Vista tool that could shrink that folder substantially. I don't know if they remade it for Win7 or whether the Vista tool will work on Win7.

I think one of the major contributors to the expansion of this folder is where you install all the language packs avail for each one adds a bunch of non-standard DLL's. I think I would try to uninstall any unused language packs and see if that shrinks the folder.
 
BingBangBop said:
I think one of the major contributors to the expansion of this folder is where you install all the language packs avail for each one adds a bunch of non-standard DLL's. I think I would try to uninstall any unused language packs and see if that shrinks the folder.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I didn't install that stuff, which is why I don't understand how or why it might've grown like that. Especially since there's hardly anything else on the machine besides Windows and Office.
 
It fixes compatibility problems with the common runtimes, but you end up with a copy of every version of the VC++ DLLs ever.

It's a lot easier than fixing backward compatibility in your development tools, however.
 
that folder stores the comparability files needed for various programs and specifically the versions needed for those programs. supposedly, it's as big as it says it is since it keeps one version of the file and hard links various versions to it for stability purposes...

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/...and-windows-vista-and-why-is-it-so-large.aspx

So, the longer you run windows, the bigger the folder will get until you make everything permanent...

so we should just make automated installs w/all our settings & software, then create a backup and restore to that backup when we run out of space... :-p

Or everyone needs to start programming and using the same version of files...
 
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