Windows folder excessively large

Ant wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
...
I'm going to have to find out if this can be done in Windows 7! G

Nope:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.1.7600.16385

Image Version: 6.1.7601.23403


Error: 87

The analyzecomponentstore option is not recognized in this context.
For more information, refer to the help.

The DISM log file can be found at C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

Well, of course not.

DISM features are NOT backported to W7 or W8.

Only Cleanmgr.exe got that treatment.

Or, you could consider the libraries that extend
the Windows Business Model back to W7 and W8 to
be backports. That's if they had some function
we could use. More energy is put into injecting
them into our OSes, than actually using them.
(That's why there are two flavors of Cumulatives
for W7/W8, one flavor of which has those libraries
wrapped in bacon fat, so we'll "eat them".)

Paul

In article
Paul wrote:

That suggests your PendingRenames never worked properly since
the last OS Upgrade. My PendingRenames has 0 bytes in it,
the PendingDeletes has 200MB (91 files).

Maybe there's a Component Based Servicing (CBS) log with
details of the failure ?

You are correct. I received an error when running ...

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

The error read ...

"Compression is disabled for this volume"

I located a registry fix for that he
https://www.technlg.net/windows/comp...bled-for-this-
volume/

and re-ran cleanup. and the GBs of PendingRenames entries were
significantly reduced.

Apparently this "compression" error had been inhibiting normal
cleanup over an extended time.

Note to Ken... yes, all dism commands are run as Administrator.

Nathan

Nomen Nescio wrote:
In article
Paul wrote:

That suggests your PendingRenames never worked properly since
the last OS Upgrade. My PendingRenames has 0 bytes in it,
the PendingDeletes has 200MB (91 files).

Maybe there's a Component Based Servicing (CBS) log with
details of the failure ?

You are correct. I received an error when running ...

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

The error read ...

"Compression is disabled for this volume"

I located a registry fix for that he
https://www.technlg.net/windows/comp...bled-for-this-
volume/

and re-ran cleanup. and the GBs of PendingRenames entries were
significantly reduced.

Apparently this "compression" error had been inhibiting normal
cleanup over an extended time.

Note to Ken... yes, all dism commands are run as Administrator.

Nathan


That's a weird one.

There are now two kinds of compression on NTFS in Win10.
I would have thought DISM would be using the second kind.
Not the older (traditional) 4KB cluster NTFS compression.

I had one copy of Win10 that got into trouble, because
the cluster size was 64K. I started with a data partition,
which was formatted 64K. And the Windows installer apparently
didn't reformat the partition, so it stayed 64K. That
disables both compression and encryption, at the same time.
And the OS ran for a long time, until one day... it
had a hissy fit. And that seemed to be the root cause.

The second kind of compression can be queried this way

compact /compactos:query # as administrator

and the response tells you whether the package
management keeps parts of WinSxS compressed with
the new method.

One difference on the new method, is a new compression
file can be stored within the $MFT, and use no regular
clusters. In the old NTFS compression method, I think
it still needs one cluster for the compressed data,
even for small files. And the old compression method
could fragment like crazy - to such an extent if you
used NTFS compression on a 60GB file, it could cause
"no resources available" type errors from the file
system. That's because the number of file fragments
was too much for NTFS to represent. Presumably the
new compression method doesn't do that.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
news
Nomen Nescio wrote:
In article
Ken Springer wrote:
On 8/30/18 3:07 PM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
In article
Ken Springer wrote:
Snip

hxxps://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-check-size-and-reclaim-disk-space-winsxs-windows-81.htm

Nathan

Snip

Somewhere in the thread the above link got changed. Don't know by who, or
why.

Presume this is the original
-
https://www.techsupportalert.com/con...windows-81.htm

Somehow in trying to reach the above link I ended up at
-
https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/wi...dows-7-and-8x/

& also came across a USB troubleshooter from Microsoft
-
https://www.techsupportalert.com/con...er+Freeware%29

--
Regards
wasbit

On 9/3/18 10:04 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
In article
Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/30/18 3:07 PM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
In article
Ken Springer wrote:


snip

That's a typo... SVI... home to System Restore.

C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution... don't touch that unless you
see software that is no longer installed.

It would be worth running Win's "Disk Cleanup" (as Administrator)
to see what Win things is safe to remove.

That has been run.

WinSxS

I just cleared 10GB of junk in WinSxS/PendingRenames...

In a command window...

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

As I mentioned in a different message, I ran this on mine, and was
surprised.

So this afternoon, when we had a chance to connect, ran this on his
computer. It reported there was one package that could be removed, or
text to that effect.

followed by...

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

That reported the component store was corrupted. I found the DISM
command line to restore health, which I'll run the next time we can connect.

hxxps://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-check-size-and-reclaim-disk-space-winsxs-windows-81.htm

Nathan

I patiently ran through the rest of the folder, looking for something
that seemed out of whack. Couldn't find anything, so I went looking
elsewhere.

I think someone in this thread mentioned the hidden folders, so I turned
them on. To my huge surprise, I discovered the AppData folder was
taking up half the 120GB drive, 60GB +.

Can this be right?

I'm also thinking my memory of the size of the Windows folder is in error.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 59.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.6.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:


I patiently ran through the rest of the folder, looking for something
that seemed out of whack. Couldn't find anything, so I went looking
elsewhere.

I think someone in this thread mentioned the hidden folders, so I turned
them on. To my huge surprise, I discovered the AppData folder was
taking up half the 120GB drive, 60GB +.

Can this be right?

I'm also thinking my memory of the size of the Windows folder is in error.

A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.
That's if you reduce the pagefile to 1GB or less. And
you switch off hibernation.

powercfg /h off

The Win10 VM in front of me, the AppData in my account
contains 1.5GB of files.

About 900MB of that AppData, is a Thunderbird profile
with News and Mail folders.

Some people can hold onto large quantities of email,
and perhaps that's what your perp is hiding on you.
Todd can tell you stories about people with 25-30GB
of mail. It happens.

Another possibility might be a cache for a browser.
My brother managed to jack up the size of one of
those caches once, that it dragged the machine down
to its knees.

*******

Note: If you do find email is the culprit, don't
be in a rush. Large email folders have been
known to corrupt when you tidy or compact them.
*Make sure* to back up the machine before
attempting email maintenance on something that
large.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
news
A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.

IIRC Windows 10 was about 16GB.
I don't have it so can't check but I ran it in a VM & also upgraded a
Windows 8.1 machine before going back to 8.1.
I seem to recall that a 20GB partition was slightly too small & having to
increase it to 25GB to allow working room.

--
Regards
wasbit

wasbit wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
news
A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.

IIRC Windows 10 was about 16GB.
I don't have it so can't check but I ran it in a VM & also upgraded a
Windows 8.1 machine before going back to 8.1.
I seem to recall that a 20GB partition was slightly too small & having
to increase it to 25GB to allow working room.


I was interested in a rough number for "space occupied".
And 10GB, if you trim a few things, is possible.

When I do the installs, the VMs are given a 64GB partition
so they won't whine too much. Hibernate on a VM is
disabled anyway, but I like to make sure (by using
one command), that the hiberfile cannot possibly
ruin my day.

I keep a collection of VHDs, just for reference file purposes.
These are the sizes. The pagefile shows the amount of space
wasted on paging. On actual OS installs here, I usually
edit the pagefile manually and set it to 1GB as a default.
You could profitably trim it to around 300MB if you wanted.
I'm not usually that tight for space, to trim it below 1GB.

10240.vhd 8,776,759,296 pagefile 1,476,395,008 hiberfile 0
10586.vhd 9,034,771,968 " " " "
14393.vhd 10,083,603,968 " " " "
15063.vhd 9,452,207,104 " " " "
16299.vhd 9,561,285,632 " " " "
17134.vhd 9,611,629,568 " " " "

Paul

On 9/10/18 9:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


I patiently ran through the rest of the folder, looking for something
that seemed out of whack. Couldn't find anything, so I went looking
elsewhere.

I think someone in this thread mentioned the hidden folders, so I turned
them on. To my huge surprise, I discovered the AppData folder was
taking up half the 120GB drive, 60GB +.

Can this be right?

I'm also thinking my memory of the size of the Windows folder is in error.

A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.
That's if you reduce the pagefile to 1GB or less. And
you switch off hibernation.

powercfg /h off

The Win10 VM in front of me, the AppData in my account
contains 1.5GB of files.

My W10 AppData folder is just 693 MB. So how does his AppData folder
get to be 62 GB?

There's got to be something disastrously wrong here.

The next time we get together, I'm going to peek in the folder, see
what's there. The only program he has installed, as listed in Programs
and Features, if Office 365 Home and Student.

Looking at my AppData folder, in the subfolders I see folders for
programs that are no longer installed. Why? Did the uninstall routine
simply not remove them?

There must be some way, other than guesswork, to compare what's
installed to the data in AppData folder, and delete what is no longer
needed.

About 900MB of that AppData, is a Thunderbird profile
with News and Mail folders.

Some people can hold onto large quantities of email,
and perhaps that's what your perp is hiding on you.
Todd can tell you stories about people with 25-30GB
of mail. It happens.

His email is Gmail, and he accesses it via Firefox, IIRC. No email
client is installed, except The mail client that comes with W10, which I
don't think he would even know how to use.

He is definitely not computer knowledgeable. :-(

Another possibility might be a cache for a browser.
My brother managed to jack up the size of one of
those caches once, that it dragged the machine down
to its knees.

I'll see what Firefox says about the cache size the next time we have a
Teamviewer session.

*******

Note: If you do find email is the culprit, don't
be in a rush. Large email folders have been
known to corrupt when you tidy or compact them.
*Make sure* to back up the machine before
attempting email maintenance on something that
large.

Paul



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 59.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 60.0.2
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:


His email is Gmail, and he accesses it via Firefox, IIRC. No email
client is installed, except The mail client that comes with W10, which I
don't think he would even know how to use.

The "DoSVC" could go into a loop and fill up a disk.
But, that doesn't fill AppData, it fills somewhere else.

https://www.computing.net/answers/wi...c-do/1241.html

That's a scheme where your household can receive one copy of
updates, and the recipient machine can share it with other
machines in the house. That's how it's supposed to reduce
Microsofts bandwidth bill.

If you use WinDirStat or SequoiaView, if should be pretty
obvious which folder it is.

Paul

On 9/11/2018 4:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 9/10/18 9:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


I patiently ran through the rest of the folder, looking for something
that seemed out of whack.Â* Couldn't find anything, so I went looking
elsewhere.

I think someone in this thread mentioned the hidden folders, so I turned
them on.Â* To my huge surprise, I discovered the AppData folder was
taking up half the 120GB drive, 60GB +.

Can this be right?

I'm also thinking my memory of the size of the Windows folder is in
error.

A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.
That's if you reduce the pagefile to 1GB or less. And
you switch off hibernation.

Â*Â*Â*Â* powercfg /h off

The Win10 VM in front of me, the AppData in my account
contains 1.5GB of files.

My W10 AppData folder is just 693 MB.Â* So how does his AppData folder
get to be 62 GB?

There's got to be something disastrously wrong here.

The next time we get together, I'm going to peek in the folder, see
what's there.Â* The only program he has installed, as listed in Programs
and Features, if Office 365 Home and Student.

Looking at my AppData folder, in the subfolders I see folders for
programs that are no longer installed.Â* Why?Â* Did the uninstall routine
simply not remove them?

There must be some way, other than guesswork, to compare what's
installed to the data in AppData folder, and delete what is no longer
needed.

About 900MB of that AppData, is a Thunderbird profile
with News and Mail folders.

Some people can hold onto large quantities of email,
and perhaps that's what your perp is hiding on you.
Todd can tell you stories about people with 25-30GB
of mail. It happens.

His email is Gmail, and he accesses it via Firefox, IIRC.Â* No email
client is installed, except The mail client that comes with W10, which I
don't think he would even know how to use.

He is definitely not computer knowledgeable.Â* :-(

Another possibility might be a cache for a browser.
My brother managed to jack up the size of one of
those caches once, that it dragged the machine down
to its knees.

I'll see what Firefox says about the cache size the next time we have a
Teamviewer session.

*******

Note: If you do find email is the culprit, don't
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* be in a rush. Large email folders have been
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* known to corrupt when you tidy or compact them.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* *Make sure* to back up the machine before
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* attempting email maintenance on something that
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* large.

Â*Â*Â*Â* Paul

Gmail may be configured for both POP and IMAP and Tbird may be using
IMAP while FireFox is using POP causing the difference in Profile size.


--
Zaidy036

On 9/11/18 7:07 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
On 9/11/2018 4:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 9/10/18 9:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


I patiently ran through the rest of the folder, looking for something
that seemed out of whack.Â* Couldn't find anything, so I went looking
elsewhere.

I think someone in this thread mentioned the hidden folders, so I turned
them on.Â* To my huge surprise, I discovered the AppData folder was
taking up half the 120GB drive, 60GB +.

Can this be right?

I'm also thinking my memory of the size of the Windows folder is in
error.

A basic install of a modern Windows OS is around 10GB total.
That's if you reduce the pagefile to 1GB or less. And
you switch off hibernation.

Â*Â*Â*Â* powercfg /h off

The Win10 VM in front of me, the AppData in my account
contains 1.5GB of files.

My W10 AppData folder is just 693 MB.Â* So how does his AppData folder
get to be 62 GB?

There's got to be something disastrously wrong here.

The next time we get together, I'm going to peek in the folder, see
what's there.Â* The only program he has installed, as listed in Programs
and Features, if Office 365 Home and Student.

Looking at my AppData folder, in the subfolders I see folders for
programs that are no longer installed.Â* Why?Â* Did the uninstall routine
simply not remove them?

There must be some way, other than guesswork, to compare what's
installed to the data in AppData folder, and delete what is no longer
needed.

About 900MB of that AppData, is a Thunderbird profile
with News and Mail folders.

Some people can hold onto large quantities of email,
and perhaps that's what your perp is hiding on you.
Todd can tell you stories about people with 25-30GB
of mail. It happens.

His email is Gmail, and he accesses it via Firefox, IIRC.Â* No email
client is installed, except The mail client that comes with W10, which I
don't think he would even know how to use.

He is definitely not computer knowledgeable.Â* :-(

Another possibility might be a cache for a browser.
My brother managed to jack up the size of one of
those caches once, that it dragged the machine down
to its knees.

I'll see what Firefox says about the cache size the next time we have a
Teamviewer session.

*******

Note: If you do find email is the culprit, don't
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* be in a rush. Large email folders have been
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* known to corrupt when you tidy or compact them.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* *Make sure* to back up the machine before
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* attempting email maintenance on something that
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* large.

Â*Â*Â*Â* Paul

Gmail may be configured for both POP and IMAP and Tbird may be using
IMAP while FireFox is using POP causing the difference in Profile size.

As I said, he doesn't use an email client. So, wouldn't POP and IMAP be
irrelevant?



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 59.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 60.0.2
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:


As I said, he doesn't use an email client. So, wouldn't POP and IMAP be
irrelevant?

It's not going to take that long to evaluate the
folder sizes :-)

Paul

On 9/11/18 9:12 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


As I said, he doesn't use an email client. So, wouldn't POP and IMAP be
irrelevant?

It's not going to take that long to evaluate the
folder sizes :-)

No, it won't. But, that doesn't answer my question. :-)


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 59.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 60.0.2
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:
On 9/11/18 9:12 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


As I said, he doesn't use an email client. So, wouldn't POP and IMAP be
irrelevant?

It's not going to take that long to evaluate the
folder sizes :-)

No, it won't. But, that doesn't answer my question. :-)

If using webmail, there's no folder with a webmail
storage area, if that's the question. The whole purpose of
webmail, is to make you a slave to the Cloud, so of course
materials cannot be stored locally. Holding you hostage
is a "service".

Browsers can hold rather large collections of files.
While cleaning browsers last night, I got a file system
corruption while removing thousands of files. The
browser "remove history" function doesn't work, so
I have to do this cleaning by hand. (I don't use
CCleaner, and am happy to do it by hand, with the
browsers closed and not in Task Manager.) I got
to practice the recipe I was preaching just yesterday,
as part of cleanup (no CHKDSK run without a backup,
Macrium refused to make a backup, had to use Plan B
and Plan C).

When I talk about folder sizes, I'm talking about
looking in AppData at the classes of things there.
Tools which might have email databases, would be
a prime candidate for space wastage. Many other
applications would not. Adobe Reader for example,
keeps a cache. When you do a search, it keeps an
index or something. The cache might be as large
as one gigabyte for Adobe Reader. Their cache can
be cleaned in the AR Preferences.

If I was looking in there, I'd have some idea
which items are "candidates" and are worth
checking. Any application can go nuts of course,
and the Microsoft "DoSVC" is an example (although
that one doesn't fill AppData with crap, it craps
up a system folder of some sort). One of the dangers
with SSD drives, is a looping process can fill the disk
relatively quickly. And the first warning of
trouble, is Storage Spaces complaining "we're low
on storage - want me to delete stuff?". When that
happens, time to shut down and... think about
what went wrong :-)

Paul