garbage collection and disk usage

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul
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P

Paul

A couple of days ago, I installed winXP Pro. The disk
space in the windows folder was 960MB.

Last night, I downloaded the XP updates, 28 files for a
total of 33MB. I installed the updates.

This morning, the total disk space in the windows folder
was 2,270MB. I can account for 1,042MB of that. 700+MB
is in the OS folder. I displayed all the hidden folders.

There is a hidden folder INF that has about 50MB of small
programs in it. I assume this is needed.

I have a feeling that this update routine accounts for a
great majority of the space problem here.

Now the questions.

1. There are hidden files such as $ntuninstallq811493$
that chew up a few meg. I presume that these are
uninstall files for th updates. Can I delete these?

2. In the Add/Remove programs, there are these update
files listed. Can I remove these without uninstalling the
updates?

3. I still can't account for 1,230 MB of stuff in this
folder. Either it must be somewhere in that folder, or
there is a folder size function that isn't working
properly. If the actual total file size for this folder
is 1,041MB and the OS thinks it has 2,270MB in it, then
there is all that free space that can't be used.

4. Did XP make a copy of itself someplace before the
update routines ran, thereby doubling the necessary disk
space usage?

Anybody have any suggestions for finding and deleting
unnecessary crap on the hard drive?

TIA for any help.

Cheers!

Paul
 
How large is your System Volume Information folder? Hibernate folder? Page file?

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| Thanks Andrew, that helped a little, giving me an extra 50
| meg. The questions I listed above still apply however.
| The windows folder still says that it contains 2.5G and if
| I add up all the programs and folders, I get 1.04G. That
| means that there is still 1.5G of junk in there that
| wasn't there yesterday before I ran update. It's either
| hidden, or the way that XP accounts for hard disk space is
| wrong. Either way, I loose a lot of space that I can
| productively use.
|
| Cheers!
|
| Paul
|
| >-----Original Message-----
| > Go to run,type:%temp%
| > Then edit,select all,delete all.
|
 
Forgive me, I just reread your message and saw that you wrote Windows folder. What threw me off was your reference to "programs". My Windows folder is 2.12 GB.

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
How large is your System Volume Information folder? Hibernate folder? Page file?

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| Thanks Andrew, that helped a little, giving me an extra 50
| meg. The questions I listed above still apply however.
| The windows folder still says that it contains 2.5G and if
| I add up all the programs and folders, I get 1.04G. That
| means that there is still 1.5G of junk in there that
| wasn't there yesterday before I ran update. It's either
| hidden, or the way that XP accounts for hard disk space is
| wrong. Either way, I loose a lot of space that I can
| productively use.
|
| Cheers!
|
| Paul
|
| >-----Original Message-----
| > Go to run,type:%temp%
| > Then edit,select all,delete all.
|
 
Thanks for your reply Jeff. But I'm getting back to my
original question. What causes a 900 MB folder to
increase in size to 2.5 GB after getting updates with a
total size of 33 MB? Methinks that XP has buried a copy
of itself someplace for uninstallation purposes. But I
can't find it to delete it. And will this exponential
growth in the Windows folder continue as I further update
XP?

This brings up a whole new round of questions based on
this anticipated XP garbage collection problem. New post
at the head of the list to follow.

Cheers!

Paul
-----Original Message-----
Forgive me, I just reread your message and saw that you
Click to expand...
wrote Windows folder. What threw me off was your
reference to "programs". My Windows folder is 2.12 GB.
 
Good luck on your quest.

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| Thanks for your reply Jeff. But I'm getting back to my
| original question. What causes a 900 MB folder to
| increase in size to 2.5 GB after getting updates with a
| total size of 33 MB? Methinks that XP has buried a copy
| of itself someplace for uninstallation purposes. But I
| can't find it to delete it. And will this exponential
| growth in the Windows folder continue as I further update
| XP?
|
| This brings up a whole new round of questions based on
| this anticipated XP garbage collection problem. New post
| at the head of the list to follow.
|
| Cheers!
|
| Paul
|
 
Is it possible the 33 MB download uncompressed itself
when it updated? 33 MB -> 1.6 GB seems a bit extreme,
but I just thought I would toss it out there.
 
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