C:\Windows\winsxs or Click My Computer > C:\\ > Windows > winsxs.

For the few vista users that are on here on the forum, do wonder why your hard driver seems to be shrinking even though you know darn well all the stuff you have installed hasn't blown through gigs of space? Well I did because at first I though it had to do with a memory issue that SP1 was suppose to fix, but after running the Disk Analyzer to Glary Ultilities I finally found the culprit as why this was happening.

So after doing a little bit of research thanks to google I found some answers as to why this is happening. As for the name of the winsxs folder it is called the Windows Side by Side, and as for my understanding of how this work its what vista uses to run everything or at least the services that are used on your computer, and it also controls the DLL files and the system32 files as well. Like your internet connection, browsers you install and other software. It also seems that this folder is needed for the .NET Frame for some of its coding, and also it replaces the I386 directory as it is no longer there.

The problem is though that you cannot touch this folder as it hold critical system files and it gets rather big once you start installing software. But there is a possible solution but like the post who made this post do it at your own risk.

Disable Vista Services

They have a program cleaner I guess that helps clean up some of the mess in that folder, again warning still applies on being careful not to delete critical files.

Vlite

So now people who didn't know now know, and for those who do know about this and know more about this folder make sure to post it.

That's true. I have a 250 Gb hard drive, but it almost "emptied" in a week, or so, although I had used only about 17-180 of it. I think it's because Vista is going nutts on security and creates tons of unnecessary (usually) backup files, that take up a lot of space. I'm not sure as to where to disable it.

Now, that is what I m talking about. Hey man, I tel you what? I am really in love with that thread out there. had to copy and save it somewhere in my laptop. Already disabled some of them services that I aint using.

Checked my winsxs folder and found out that it is 3.94GB in size. I opened it and saw a lota junks (am i right to call that junks?) in there. whatever they are meant for.

As for security there has been only a few updates since August, like mention in my first post it has to do with software installation and that it creates these files to properly work in vista. This also includes vista updates and updates to software. Unless you know what files to delete or having problems with programs I wouldn't suggest deleting them since most of them are system critical files.

I found another interesting link at the MSDN website about how this all works out, and it seems a bit complicated and its pretty late to be reading this as well. So if you up for a challenge read this and see why vista is screwing our hard drive space like this.

so the virtual memory is very low even on a 50 gb hard drive

Hmm... I still haven't used it before. But I have checked some information that microsoft
will do the thing was copyed all installation files to the disk even those that not needed for
daily operation.

I think the data store within the folder should be openable by Windows
new imgaing tools. So that made it easier to know what data will be included with it.
Or may be the best way was using that tool to custom a new image and cut off some
not needed data and installing it with regular method.

Winsxs folder
The Reason Why You Hard Drive Seems To Get Smaller When Running Vista

I think we should unite and file big lawsuite about that WINSXS folder:
Why we need to keep 38000 files and mostly copies of the same file
Of total from 3GB (new install) to 12-15GB after couple months.
I spoke with Microsoft and there is no solution:"everybody going
.NET and that folder will grow up, thats OK, and I can not delete
A piece - system will crash..."" Check yours and will see how much space taking Windows folder.
So who knows good lawyer?


-reply by Sigi

thanks for the information.. now i have another reason not to change my Windows XP to Vista [ yet ]

I have 103 GB free out of 147 GB...so what you're sayin is that I should have about 125-ish free or something?

Also, how difficult is this task?

It's information like this that keeps me away from Vista and even advise against it even though I haven't even tried it myself.

Windows XP SP2, what I hail as the most stable, most encompassing, and probably best version of the Windows platform, has it's own problems, but I don't think it's as bad as Vista's growing number of problems and inconveniences. And to think that it's supposed to replace XP...

is the new service pack correct this thing or not? i'm thinking of buying a new comp with a vista and advice is needed

Not really, but instead it increases the size of the SXS folder as I was almost to 6Gb when I installed the SP1, might be over 6 now because of the recent patches that came out. Of course your should be smaller since yours will come pre-installed, however, because of Win SXS function to help with making software compatibility it will always increase as you install more and more software and what not.

As for your question Inhuman it is hard to say really, you could have more then that but depending what you have installed, and you do some deep cleaning, then you might want to get another hard drive ready as you slowly run out of room and what not. Of course as the patches start rolling out for vista on a monthly basis they will be one of the primary reasons that your Win SXS gets larger.

In regards to SxS:

I looked at this feature in-depth and see the application for it; however, this doesn't exactly discourage broken or actually fixing the source of the problem (that I see, anyway). Dynamic Link Libraries should be programmed to be backwards-compatible and not so that a new version of XYZ.dll will break functionality in programs that rely on a previous version, much like how Microsoft did with DirectX. Maybe I'm just being another just-want-it-to-work user and not taking into effect the difficulty of engineering DLLs in this way, but wouldn't it make sense?

(For those of you who don't know what SxS is, it stands for Side-By-Side, a Microsoft "innovation" where installations of programs can have their own DLL files as opposed to sharing them. The great thing about it is that you avoid losing program functionality when installing and overwriting old DLL versions with new ones - because either your previous programs can't use the new DLL for some reason or is only programmed to work with an older version. The bad thing is that Vista will allow redundant installing of multiple instances of the same DLL - different versions to accomodate different programs - and this apparently will eat up hard drive space like crazy as more and more programs are installed on the Vista machine. This feature is also available to XP and other platforms through virtualization software... although I'm wondering why the heck anyone would WANT this. Anyone who wants to correct me on this, please do so... I don't even have Vista and I'm talking smack about it. )

Just because we have the technology and hard drive space is becoming cheaper doesn't mean that we can go crazy with lazy coding and lazy techniques to temporarily fix problems...

Well from what I surmize about the Winsxs folder is that folder is used to fix the compatibility problem, along with using the new search indexing as well. Of course I did a little searching just to see if I could move that WinSXS folder to a new location, or rather to another hard drive, and to answer that question no you can't or you will not get updates, and if you have installed SP1 you will blue screen of death the computer. So I might have to do a back up of that computer one day, and move everything to the bigger hard drive, and at 250 gigs that is going to take forever .

Yea, I was already planning on getting am external hard drive this summer, so I can put all my music and software on it. Is there any specific reason why MS decided to do this other than to screw over the consumer?

wow great that i found this thread...i too notice that lately my drive is getting smaller and smaller.
Will to remove those "junks" in the folder to free up space.
THANKS!!!

As I mentioned in my first post, Inhuman, it has to do with being able to install different versions of the soft and not run into any compatibility issues. sometimes programs require older versions of files in order to run, if you remember in XP and you uninstall a program and a pop message saying something along the lines that a file existed for this program and if you uninstall it, other program might not work? It may not be the exact words but you might have an idea what I am getting at, but that is what vista is doing and so you won't get that error through vista, I believe.

Check out this link and it might give a better explanation about the winsxs folder

Hi there! I recently re-installed windows on my 250 gb WD SATA hard drive. I had a 50 gb windows partition and the rest for files. First thing that happened was my system partition wouldn't boot and eventually chkdsk said that the mbr was unrecoverable. A friend recommended that ...more

I just bought that disk (seagate SATA 500G) half year ago and found it stop working randomly, resulting the whole system to be dead. BTW, I am using Win XP. I tried to use seatool, provied by seagate, to scan and repair the error, the program stop at the half of the process. I even can't format ...more

Hi all, please help.... I had a western digital network hard drive and it does not show up on the network anymore. The ethernet port is nackered. So i have opened up the drive and have connected it to my pc, but it does not show up on my computer. I have checked device manager and its ...more