I thought very strange that, no matter how much of my data I deleted, I was running out of space constantly these past weeks. Then, I decided to find out how much each directly was using. Due to the lack of "du" in Windows OSs, I thought that Windows Explorer would have similar functionality. I really thought so, because I remember seeing GUIs displaying how much each directory was taking up. Later I would remember that this was KDE or GNOME, not Windows. So, first discovery:
Windows does not ship with any utility to find out how much space is being used on your hard drive.
Having to deal with this limitation, here I go to find out any 3rd party solution rather than right clicking on each of the root-level directories and checking their properties. I found two: diruse.exe (part of Windows 2000 resource kit) and another tool that I can't remember now.
Diruse.exe reports inaccurate values compared to Windows Explorer. It seems it counts the file multiple times for some reason that I didn't care to understand. The graphical tool, which is nice but not free, displayed that I had almost 30Gb that was being used by "unscannable folders" (note: this partition has 120Gb or, in other words, these unscannable folders amount to 25% of it). Go figure what are the unscannable folders. Even being admin, there are some system folders that you don't have access, including one name "System Volume Information".
I gave a few tries to unlock this "System Volume Information", but without being lucky. So I found out what this folder is about: "System Restore" feature - something that I never used and maybe will never user. I followed some instructions on how to disable "System Restore" and clean up this folder and voila: I have 28Gb back.
What surprises me is that:
1. Apparently there is no limit for how much disk this system restore will use.
2. Using Windows cleanup tool, it does not suggest this folder as a way to get disk space back.
3. This folder is locked, so even an admin doesn't find out that it is using lots of disk space. You have to unlock to figure out.
4. Getting to "System Restore" is not intuitive and, once there, it does not say anything about being using disk space. When you disable, there is a warning before disabling, but nothing about the disk space.
5. In the end, what one would do is the same old mantra: reformat and reinstall the system. But, installing from a media that does not have the updates will not help you very much as all the updates will be installed again. And what is the result? System restore points will be logged automatically again, taking up something like 30Gb of disk space.
What's the solution? Unless you understand why that happens, in which case you might get a Vista SP1 or later version that does not require installing new updates, the only solution is getting a larger hard disk or, what is more common, a new computer.
3 comments:
Sadly, I can understand (but still disagree with) Vista's policy.
They're using the same idea as most OSs do with main memory: clean-on-demand. Why clean your disk if you still have free space?
Maybe the rollback segment (the area you found) grows to use the whole free space and stops, cleaning old stuff to give place to new stuff. Maybe Vista cleans up old stuff from it when you need space for real data.
The difference is that main memory is faster, so you don't actually notice the cleaning, also because you think it's processing useful stuff, not cleaning. But imagine the impact that the cleaning has on the time scale of new programs...
It's the same thing with garbage collector, they think they know when things have to be wiped clean. They claim to know better than you how to manage memory. To most people, they do, but not all, and there's where they fail.
You, with disks, is a neurotic cleaner (like me), probably reminiscent behaviour from the time disks had only 20Mb (as mine), and for you (like me), that behaviour is clearly unacceptable. ;)
I totally agree with you IF Vista started cleaning up this system restoration files once it doesn't have enough space any longer.
I had around 150Mb left, things like Windows Media Center (one of the reasons I use Windows) doesn't record any more programs and the taskbar starts displaying that balloon that the system is running out of space. I then run the assistant to clean up the disk, and nothing about these 30Gb used by System Restore is mentioned.
Although I never like that the system starts using the disk like crazy, I am not that neurotic until it runs out of space. Then I try to understand what is going on, and this post is the summary of my feelings :-)
Oh well, so it comes back to good old stupidity. I take back my support... ;)
My tip to clean up your Windows system: boot up Ubuntu live CD and run:
$ find /windows -atime +100 -exec rm -rf {} \;
Or rather just wipe off that giant virus and install some proper OS...
PS: I'm posting this on Chrome for Linux... :D
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