"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Again, that's one of the places we differ: I wouldn't _want_ an image of
| a _fresh_ system, because I know (or even, I don't!) how long it would
| take me to restore such a system - reinstall software, and tweak
| everything how I like it.

Actually it sounds like we're doing pretty much the
same thing. By fresh system I mean Windows with all
drivers and most software installed, and with
configuration done as much as possible. So all I
need to do it to import backed up data, like email,
and it's ready to go.
The only things I don't set up are things like Libre
Office, which takes up a lot of room and I don't really
customize the setup.

Like you, I might also occasionally do a current
image, if I'm doing something risky. But mostly I
depend on my "fresh" image and backed up data.

| Win7 can grow to 40-60 GB for
| one reason only: So that plug and play appears to
| be improved. Just in case you end up somehow installing
| an Intel graphics chip on your AMD system, you have
| the drivers ready to go.
|
| That WinSXS folder they tell us its wisest not to mess with is a big
| part of that, isn't it? It accounts for 7.16G of the 31.5G on my C:, and
| that's after only a year or two of real use (and not being very
| enthusiastic about installing "up"dates).

Yes. Winsxs is mainly what I'm talking about. There's
also a smaller driver backup, but that can be deleted.
Winsxs starts out at about 4 GB, being basically a copy of
the install DVD. It would be nice if they asked before
doing that.

There is, also, one other factor: I'm not sure of the
details on Win7 but sxs means "side-by-side". It's an
idea to cure "DLL hell". It used to be that things could
easily get screwed up when Acme editor installed abc.dll
v. 4.1 and then Ace Editor overwrote that with v. 3 or
v. 5, or even v. 4.11. Microsoft once had a famous
case where they had different DLLs for RichEdit, a core
component. Their instructions for people who needed to
install it with their software were bizar

-----------------------------------------------
There are three different Riched32.dll files that have the version number
5.0.1458.47, and one of them is not redistributable. This article describes
the differences between these files and includes additional distribution
information.

MORE INFORMATION
Each of the three Riched32.dll files with the version number 5.0.1458.47,
and has a different size. These versions a

.. A 169KB version (general release).
.. A 176KB version that is optimized for loading on Windows 98, but is
identical in code to the general release version.
.. A 225KB version that was released by the Microsoft Exchange group. It is
intended to cover all localized versions and is dependent upon GAPI32.dll.

Of these three versions of Riched32.dll 5.0.1458.47, you can only distribute
the 169KB or 176KB versions. If the target computer is already using the
225KB version, do not replace it with another Riched32.dll with the same
version number or older.

Also, keep the following in mind when distributing Riched32.dll using
third-party setup programs:

.. If the target computer is running NT 4.0, your setup program should not
replace Riched32.dll.
.. Riched32.dll is a part of the operation system installation of Windows
2000. Setup programs installing to Windows 2000 should not install
Riched32.dll.
---------------------------------------------

Similar problems could happen with COM libraries.

Side-by-side is the slightly dubious idea that the problem
can be solved by letting each program have its own
version of a library, and store it in their private program
folder if need be. So you can end up with, say, the
Visual C++ runtimes in an almost limitless variety.
First there's a version for each releas: VC 2008,
VC 2010, etc. But then there are also incremental versions.
I have 11 versions of the VC 2008 runtime just on
my XP system! Probably each one was installed by a
different program.

Winsxs seems to be an institutionalizing of that idea.
If 67 versions of abcdef.dll float by then Windows will
grab a copy of each and put it into winsxs. That way
the Ace software can use v. 1.413.2 and Acme can use
1.413.3. In 99% of cases it won't make any difference.
Like copying all drivers to disk, it's an extremely sloppy,
bloated way to make windows seem more stable.