WinSxS Folder Taking Up Too Much Disk Space: Fix
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.
Filed under Windows Vista by on May 4th, 2009. Comment. 
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Good idea !!!
Tested at their skin, the risk is worth it!
I was irritated by this folder
Hi Is this program working on Vista SP2, because it continues showning “unable to open XXXX file” when i do the 1st step
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…
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.
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.
I translated into Russian and published on his blog.
Because the information is relevant and required solutions and further development
You cannot download this file as it is only avaialble to premium rate users!
does this work on windows 7?
Hi,
I can’t download the file from rapidshare. Could someone help me?
THX
Thank U for sharing to us this useful program.
It really helped. More than 2 Gb went to free space))
In Config.txt there is a parametre
PROGRAM FILES DIR=Program Files
At me 64х bit Windows7. Whether It is necessary to finish something to this parametre? After all at me 2 folders with programs!