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WinSxS Folder Taking Up Too Much Disk Space: Fix

4 May 2009 @ 9am

The WinSxS (Windows Side-by-Side, located in %windir%\WinSxS) folder is a critical component of Windows Vista. It contains files that are necessary for adding or removal of programs, uninstalling components, and installing certain system updates. Unfortunately, the folder also has a tendency to swell in size, taking up large amounts of disk space (up to 6GB to 10GB or more).

Under no circumstances should you ever manually delete items from this folder. Doing so can interfere with critical system functions and may eventually lead to a situation in which you need to reinstall Windows Vista. However, one user has developed a tool that can safely remove unnecessary files from this directory, saving large amounts of hard drive space.

Fix

Christian Bering Boegh has created a tool called WinsxsLite, which works by deleting some unnecessary files and, in their place, linking to the latest versions of the same files (the WinSxS folder, by default, contains duplicates of many files). You can download the latest version of WinsxsLite (1.8.6) here. An instruction file is included–be sure to read it thoroughly before running the tool.

Note, however, the following stern warning: “WinsxsLite makes irreversible changes to the entire system partition. The only way to undo these changes, is to restore the system partition from a backup taken before running WinsxsLite.” In other words, unless you really need the 3GB or so that WinsxsLite will likely recover, you’re better off leaving the WinSxS folder alone.

Share and Enjoy:

Tagged
Windows Vista

10 Comments

Posted by
Eduard
30 May 2009 @ 2pm

Good idea !!!
Tested at their skin, the risk is worth it!
I was irritated by this folder


Posted by
sergio
17 June 2009 @ 9am

Hi Is this program working on Vista SP2, because it continues showning “unable to open XXXX file” when i do the 1st step


Posted by
Pavel Pavlov
29 June 2009 @ 6am

I have Vista SP2 x64. I start winsxslite.bat as administrator.
The errors are:
In Phase 2:
Missing ln.exe command.
In Realocate:
Missing subinacl.exe command.
In Auto start after reboot the errors are same…


Posted by
SataN
10 July 2009 @ 4am

Might want to read the help file it creates.
It works fine on windows 2008 server standard.
There are numerous files that need to be downloaded and put into the same directory as the batch file.


Posted by
MR Mirante
15 July 2009 @ 2pm

I ran with no problem, the issue is if you save in a location that is not in the Windows Vista Path you will have this error or you might have issue if you have one of those files already from another application such as cygwin, which was my case as cygwin has the commands like ln and others that can create conflict.
So to fix this i save all files at c:\tools\bin and added it to System Properties, Advanced, Environments Variable, PATH and added it as first in my list.


Posted by
Eduard
6 August 2009 @ 5am

I translated into Russian and published on his blog.
Because the information is relevant and required solutions and further development


Posted by
stephen adams
5 November 2009 @ 2pm

You cannot download this file as it is only avaialble to premium rate users!


Posted by
Tyler
16 December 2009 @ 1am

does this work on windows 7?


Posted by
Theo
9 January 2010 @ 3pm

Hi,

I can’t download the file from rapidshare. Could someone help me?

THX


Posted by
PenDragon
13 February 2010 @ 2pm

Thank U for sharing to us this useful program.
It really helped. More than 2 Gb went to free space))


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