Will winsxs stop growing?

On my system, C:\Windows\winsxs occupies 8.5G, out of the 36G used on my
C:, which I try to keep as just OS-plus-software (i. e. not data).

I've seen various discussions of what winsxs is, which generally descend
fairly rapidly into whether it really is the size it seems to be, talk
about junction points, and so on, to the extent that my brain hurts; in
general, I get the impression that, for bears of little brain like me,
it's something I should leave well alone, and accept that it will grow
as time goes by.

When end of support happens in January, will it stop growing?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)[email protected]+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On my system, C:\Windows\winsxs occupies 8.5G, out of the 36G used on my
C:, which I try to keep as just OS-plus-software (i. e. not data).

I've seen various discussions of what winsxs is, which generally descend
fairly rapidly into whether it really is the size it seems to be, talk
about junction points, and so on, to the extent that my brain hurts; in
general, I get the impression that, for bears of little brain like me,
it's something I should leave well alone, and accept that it will grow
as time goes by.

When end of support happens in January, will it stop growing?

There seem to be a lot of references to Windows Update
in the article here, so my guess is there won't be substantial
future changes.

https://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how...indows-7-or-8/

An application might cause a supporting subsystem to be installed,
in which case there might be a tiny change to it. That's why
I don't think the possibility is "exactly" zero, but it will be
close to zero changes.

More damaging, might be the keeping of copies of program
installer MSI files, and programs that keep their own
"uninstall materials". Such as say, Chrome, keeping a 150MB
cache contained in some sort of ZIP, which is used for uninstall
or repair. And application like Macrium is an absolute pig
when it comes to wasted space, and stuff squirreled here and
there. You might hear me emit a "Grrr..." under my breath
when I'm using sequoiaview/windirstat and notice this
sort of thing.

Paul

In message , "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
writes
On my system, C:\Windows\winsxs occupies 8.5G, out of the 36G used on
my C:, which I try to keep as just OS-plus-software (i. e. not data).

I've seen various discussions of what winsxs is, which generally
descend fairly rapidly into whether it really is the size it seems to
be, talk about junction points, and so on, to the extent that my brain
hurts; in general, I get the impression that, for bears of little brain
like me, it's something I should leave well alone, and accept that it
will grow as time goes by.

When end of support happens in January, will it stop growing?

Mine's 12.8G, with 61,397 Files and 14,508 Folders! But since I still
have 809G free disk space out of a capacity of 931G on my C drive, I'm
not too concerned.
--
John Hall
"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history
that man can never learn anything from history."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On my system, C:\Windows\winsxs occupies 8.5G, out of the 36G used on
my C:, which I try to keep as just OS-plus-software (i. e. not data).
I've seen various discussions of what winsxs is, which generally
descend fairly rapidly into whether it really is the size it seems to
be, talk about junction points, and so on, to the extent that my
brain hurts; in general, I get the impression that, for bears of
little brain like me, it's something I should leave well alone, and
accept that it will grow as time goes by.
When end of support happens in January, will it stop growing?

There seem to be a lot of references to Windows Update
in the article here, so my guess is there won't be substantial
future changes.

https://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how...-your-winsxs-f
older-on-windows-7-or-8/

Thanks, I might have a look at that sometime.

An application might cause a supporting subsystem to be installed,
in which case there might be a tiny change to it. That's why
I don't think the possibility is "exactly" zero, but it will be
close to zero changes.

More damaging

(To disc space I presume you mean.)

, might be the keeping of copies of program
installer MSI files, and programs that keep their own
"uninstall materials". Such as say, Chrome, keeping a 150MB
cache contained in some sort of ZIP, which is used for uninstall
or repair.

I suppose it might conceivably be needed for repair; I can't see why it
should be needed for uninstall. (Nice to know you can in theory still
uninstall Chrome!)

And application like Macrium is an absolute pig
when it comes to wasted space, and stuff squirreled here and
there. You might hear me emit a "Grrr..." under my breath
when I'm using sequoiaview/windirstat and notice this
sort of thing.

Thanks for the warning. I haven't actually installed Macrium on here - I
always boot from the CD when making an image, and the CD I made on my XP
machine has worked fine on this machine so far (including a restore [to
a bigger drive]). But I'll look out for that - if I remember! - if I
ever think to install it.

Paul
John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)[email protected]+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, VO5 (I came, I saw, I washed my hair) - Mik from S+AS Limited
), 1998

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| When end of support happens in January, will it stop growing?

As I understand it, winsxs will eat a copy of any system
file it gets its hands on. So if you do something like install
a new printer or a new program that uses a new version
of the VC++ runtime, then winsxs will grab whatever drivers
or DLLs it can get its hands on. If you change nothing then
it probably won't grow.

In my tests it was possible to delete lots of stuff from winsxs
that I knew I'd never need, but that process could take days.
And when I tried to delete the whole thing the system went
haywire. Interestingly, there seemed to be no problem
with moving winsxs to D drive. But that doesn't actually help
anything.

My approach is to make disk images of a clean system.
If winsxs gets too big I can just wipe it and put back the
original 8 GB-ish install. I don't see any other realistic way
to approach it. You just have to accept that there's a
virulent, cancerous growth in the middle of your OS and
that it's inoperable. I've seen discussions online of people
talking about 60-80 GB for winsxs. It's like those stories
in National Enquirer about the obese person who turned
out to have a 90 pound abdominal cyst.