Winsxs

[time]

I've known about Winsxs bloat for years, but assumed there would ultimately be a solution.

I'm looking at a Windows 7 PC deployed about 3 years ago where Windows takes up about 24GB of storage, and more than 14GB of that is in Winsxs.

I ran Disk Cleanup with the System files option, and it promised to return 4.5GB. In fact, it freed up a miserable 0.5GB. This is supposed to be borrowed from Windows 8. WTF is wrong with this sh*t?

So, has anyone figured out to lance this ever-present giant boil without borking Windows?

 

[Howell]

You have already tried the only way to reduce the size after installation. The only other supported way is to reinstall the OS with current updates slipstreamed. The problem is the same on server OSes.

 

[Mercutio]

I've seen Vista machines with 90GB WinSXS folders. 25GB doesn't even sound that bad to me, but of course that's more data than either OSX or Linux uses in a complete install.

 

[jtr1962]

My WinSXS folder is only 8.84GB. Then again this install of Windows 7 is only about 18 months old. Seriously though, Microsoft should come up with a solution to this. Now that many machines are using SSDs for boot drives, you can't assume a ridiculously large amount of space for the Windows partition.

 

[Chewy509]

Slightly OT; When I read the thread titles, I read it as Win "suxs"...

Unfortunately, WinSxS is a byproduct (aka solution) to DLL Hell that plagued early windows versions and the lack of knowledge on developers parts on how to deploy their software correctly... Gotta live with it unfortunately... BTW, you can nuke the contents of WinSxS and Windows itself will run fine, it may just kill or cause odd behaviour in some applications.

 

[Mercutio]

I tried that once and found that it hosed my ability to uninstall or repair software installations on that machine.

 

[Howell]

If you remove the windows\software distribution folder you get similar results for the OS.

 

[Bozo]

My Winsxs folder is 10.4 GB. Did you empty the recycle bin before you checked the folder size?
You could try CCleaner.

 

[LunarMist]

My Winsxs folder is 10.4 GB. Did you empty the recycle bin before you checked the folder size?
You could try CCleaner.

Does CCleaner remove unneeded Winsxs? I cannot find the option.

 

[Mercutio]

Really all you can do is run a command that cleans up anything left over from prior to the most current Service Pack install. I've seen systems where doing that knocks 1.5GB off the total size of the folder, but for a folder that's potentially more than ten times that amount, that's just a drop in the bucket.

 

[Howell]

Disk cleanup handles that now. Nice to not have to remember the command variations across OSs.

 

[LunarMist]

Damn. Mine is about 8.5GB, nearly half of the whole C: drive.

 

[P5-133XL]

You have only a 17GB C: partition?

 

[LunarMist]

You have only a 17GB C: partition?

C: has about 25GB including the 4GB page file. Many of my apps are rather old and less bloated than the current ones. I don't keep any data on C: and all the temp files, Outloop, etc. are on another SSD. The Softwares Distributor folder is also emptied. I suppose it's an old habit to maintain C: as small as possible and distribute the workload to other disks. As well, restoring the C: image is fast and easy with no concern for data. I'm sure my thinking is quite archaic now, but I'm not the computer dude.