S
Stan Brown
A while back I initiated a discussion on the ever-growing Winsxs
folder. As I recall (and I could be wrong), the discussion petered
out without reaching any real conclusion. Today as I sat waiting for
Malwarebytes to churn through all those gigabytes I decided to search
for new information.
The most useful I found was this one:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/09/17/what-is-the-
winsxs-directory-in-windows-2008-and-windows-vista-and-why-is-it-so-
large.aspx
(Apologies for the line breaks -- a shorter equivalent is
http://snipurl.com/2534omu .)
He admits that this folder is full of stuff that isn't actually used,
but says that promotes reliability and simplicity if you do install
things later. (I'm not saying he's wrong, just summarizing.)
One bit of good news is this: "The WinSxS folder is the only
location that the component is found on the system, all other
instances of the files that you see on the system are 'projected' by
hard linking from the component store."
So the Winsxs folder isn't backups; everything in there is the only
copy on the system. That at least is some good news.
He's very clear that you shouldn't try to "clean up" the Winsxs
folder, because the consequences of deleting something that's
apparently unneeded are just too severe. There's one exception: you
*can* clean it up after installing Windows 7 SP1. "Service Pack 1
contains a binary called VSP1CLN.EXE, a tool that will make the
Service Pack package permanent (not removable) on your system, and
remove the RTM versions of all superseded components."
He doesn't mention CLEANMGR (part of Windows), but if you run it and
select to clean up drive C you get an option to "Clean Up System
Files". If memory serves, that actually does the same thing of making
SP1 permanent by removing superseded components from Winsxs. I do
remember that when I did that my Winsxs folder shrank, though of
course with every Windows update it grows again. This article from
Windows 7 Forums seems to confirm that:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122262-windows-7-sp1-disk-
cleanup-tool.html
or
http://snipurl.com/2534vmt
Bottom line: Winsxs contents aren't all needed, and some are obsolete
but at least none of them are actually duplicates. After SP1 (and
presumably SP2), you can shrink the folder, but otherwise it's not
safe to mess with it.
folder. As I recall (and I could be wrong), the discussion petered
out without reaching any real conclusion. Today as I sat waiting for
Malwarebytes to churn through all those gigabytes I decided to search
for new information.
The most useful I found was this one:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/09/17/what-is-the-
winsxs-directory-in-windows-2008-and-windows-vista-and-why-is-it-so-
large.aspx
(Apologies for the line breaks -- a shorter equivalent is
http://snipurl.com/2534omu .)
He admits that this folder is full of stuff that isn't actually used,
but says that promotes reliability and simplicity if you do install
things later. (I'm not saying he's wrong, just summarizing.)
One bit of good news is this: "The WinSxS folder is the only
location that the component is found on the system, all other
instances of the files that you see on the system are 'projected' by
hard linking from the component store."
So the Winsxs folder isn't backups; everything in there is the only
copy on the system. That at least is some good news.
He's very clear that you shouldn't try to "clean up" the Winsxs
folder, because the consequences of deleting something that's
apparently unneeded are just too severe. There's one exception: you
*can* clean it up after installing Windows 7 SP1. "Service Pack 1
contains a binary called VSP1CLN.EXE, a tool that will make the
Service Pack package permanent (not removable) on your system, and
remove the RTM versions of all superseded components."
He doesn't mention CLEANMGR (part of Windows), but if you run it and
select to clean up drive C you get an option to "Clean Up System
Files". If memory serves, that actually does the same thing of making
SP1 permanent by removing superseded components from Winsxs. I do
remember that when I did that my Winsxs folder shrank, though of
course with every Windows update it grows again. This article from
Windows 7 Forums seems to confirm that:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122262-windows-7-sp1-disk-
cleanup-tool.html
or
http://snipurl.com/2534vmt
Bottom line: Winsxs contents aren't all needed, and some are obsolete
but at least none of them are actually duplicates. After SP1 (and
presumably SP2), you can shrink the folder, but otherwise it's not
safe to mess with it.