Windows Folder Out Of Control

On 11/7/2015 6:35 AM, wrote:
When looking around in Windows Explorer, I found the following folder
that is out of control. C:/windows/winsxs
That thing has 15,000 folders in it.

What the hell is that all about and can it be deleted? Each folder
only contains one file on average. They all appear to be Microsoft
files, but come on.........15,000?

Never noticed them until just recently. And, I have said NO to
upgrading to Windows 10 and carefully examine each update.

Any ideas?


My PC has two physical hard drives, a SSD and a spinner. About a year
ago, I was hit by a PC virus that prevented me from booting. The
solution required re-installing Windows 7. In the process, the PC guru
who helped me partitioned the SSD into C and J partitions with Windows 7
Ultimate SP1 (x64) on the C partition. Fortunately, the spinner
(D-drive, which held my data) was not affected.

After reading much of this thread, I searched for "winsxs". I found
three such folders, two on the C partition and one on the J partition.
There were none on the D drive.

One of the winsxs folders on the C partition was in [C:\Local Disk
D_121520141317\Windows]; all of the files in that winsxs folder were
dated prior to the reinstallation of Windows 7. I deleted that folder.
I did not touch the winsxs folder at [C:\Windows\winsxs].

The winsxs folder on the J partition also was dated prior to the
reinstallation of Windows 7. I deleted that folder and recovered about
6 GB of space on the J partition, which is significant since the entire
partition has less than 40 GB.

Deleting the two winsxs folders took quite some time. Most of the files
and folders were locked, so I had to use Unlocker from
http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/.

It is now a day later. It appears that my Windows 7 remains stable. At
first, I did see some anomalies; but they disappeared after a cold
reboot. If something arises, I can restore the two deleted winsxs
folders and their contents from a backup.

--
David E. Ross

Is Kim Davis a hero or a villain? See my
http://www.rossde.com/KimDavis.html.

On Mon, 09 Nov 2015 16:40:49 -0500, Paul wrote:
Naturally, WinSXS can fill up with stuff, and you guys that install
five programs a day for years on end, your WinSXS is likely to be
bigger than mine


This is the first I've ever heard that Winsxs is used for any non-
Windows programs. Are you certain of this? Can you cite some
authority?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

En el artículo , Mandy Liefbowitz
escribió:

My very first computer had the entire Windows OS on something like
six floppies.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2015/08/28/wi...g?x=1200&y=794



--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

Stan Brown wrote:
On Mon, 09 Nov 2015 16:40:49 -0500, Paul wrote:
Naturally, WinSXS can fill up with stuff, and you guys that install
five programs a day for years on end, your WinSXS is likely to be
bigger than mine


This is the first I've ever heard that Winsxs is used for any non-
Windows programs. Are you certain of this? Can you cite some
authority?


Then why are people quoting such radically
different numbers ? My OSes here aren't that big.
If only the OSes were using it, for each machine
patched to the same state (up to date), it
would have the same file and folder count. Does it ?

Paul

| Then why are people quoting such radically
| different numbers ? My OSes here aren't that big.
| If only the OSes were using it, for each machine
| patched to the same state (up to date), it
| would have the same file and folder count. Does it ?
|

It seems to store any system support files. For
instance, if software installs the MS VC++ 9 runtime
it will go to winsxs. If another program then installs
another version of the same thing then that also
gets copied to winsxs. Likewise with printer drivers
and such. I'm not certain about all that, but it seems
to be the way it works. If people are installing minor
versions of something very bloated, like a .Net3+
runtime, that might take up a lot of space. Though
it's still hard to imagine how 40-60 GB builds up.

Stan Brown wrote:
On Mon, 09 Nov 2015 16:40:49 -0500, Paul wrote:
Naturally, WinSXS can fill up with stuff, and you guys that install
five programs a day for years on end, your WinSXS is likely to be
bigger than mine


This is the first I've ever heard that Winsxs is used for any non-
Windows programs. Are you certain of this? Can you cite some
authority?


A .NET file linked four times.

37037 -rw------- 5 mint mint 698480 Aug 10 2013 ./Windows/Microsoft.NET/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Data.Linq/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Data.Linq.dll
37037 -rw------- 5 mint mint 698480 Aug 10 2013 ./Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/System.Data.Linq.dll
37037 -rw------- 5 mint mint 698480 Aug 10 2013 ./Windows/WinSxS/msil_system.data.linq_b77a5c561934e089_4.0.9600.16 384_none_9877dc1a0037797f/System.Data.Linq.dll
37037 -rw------- 5 mint mint 698480 Aug 10 2013 ./Windows/WinSxS/x86_netfx4-system.data.linq_b03f5f7f11d50a3a_4.0.9600.16384_n one_e50c6146e801bb1a/System.Data.Linq.dll

A weird one, a WinSXS file linked into Program Files\Common Files

37069 -rw------- 5 mint mint 24064 Feb 27 2014 ./Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/Ink/en-US/TipRes.dll.mui
37069 -rw------- 5 mint mint 24064 Feb 27 2014 ./Program Files/Common Files/microsoft shared/ink/en-US/TipRes.dll.mui
37069 -rw------- 5 mint mint 24064 Feb 27 2014 ./Windows/WinSxS/amd64_microsoft-windows-t..nputpanel.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.1 7035_en-us_ee0a4cda70aec75f/TipRes.dll.mui
37069 -rw------- 5 mint mint 24064 Feb 27 2014 ./Windows/WinSxS/wow64_microsoft-windows-t..nputpanel.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.1 7035_en-us_f85ef72ca50f895a/TipRes.dll.mui

But in a quick scroll through the sorted file, I can't
find any instances where a Program Files installation
is linked somewhere else.

So where is all the junk coming from, when people post larger
numbers than others ? Some using CleanMgr and some not ?

Paul