God help...die Bill Gates (can't reduce my winsxs file)

turbo · Nov 7, 2014

Alright I am not a IT/techie person; not an idiot but I run a department with operational focused technology and know jack shit about home computers and windows platform etc. So....the issue is

I need to download Net framework to play a video game. I go to download it says I need 2 or 3 GB space free but doesn't allow me to pick where its downloaded. It is reading my existing C/drive which is only a 37 GB SSD hardrive to run windows (a few things have got on there but nothing significant that I can find). After trying for hours to find shit to delete to allow me to have room to download this I found my winsxs file is huge as shit. I read claims its not actually that large but regardless I can't initiatie a download so apparently it is real or takes place of real space used when its looking at what I can download.

So I made sure I had the most recent windows 7 service pack update etc; spent hours reading shit trying to figure out how to get rid of these files and the answer always came up to just run disk clean up and click on clean up system files and it would add an option that would delete old backups not needed in winsxs (windows update something will show up on your disk cleanup options. Well I don't see that and I am at a loss. The file is showing 19+ GB still and I can't download .Netframe since it shows only 1 GB free on my C:drive.

Any of you smart/experienced guys have any ideas? Also fuck MS for honestly being this god damn fucking stupid to think its a good idea to have a part of their system that can literally create files that will ultimately prevent you from being able to run the damn system without a automated deletion process. I don't know jack shit about computers but am smart enough on some SQL application VM's to know we had to setup something to delete logs/files generated from our application or eventually the fucker is going to fill up.

Any help would be appreciated. Also I have an external HD and a very large secondary SSD for all my games in my gaming computer but doesn't do me any good when I can't fucking pick where I want it to save the file.

Folanlron · Nov 7, 2014

Disk Cleanup Wizard addon lets users delete outdated Windows updates on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, this program incorprates sections of Win8's system update program, in order to allow people to reduce WinSXS folder size(your computer will say "reconfiguring" updates once you re-boot after running this but it's fine, it's basically removing the Dead Sym Links, from updates).

Also you can empty out C:\windows\Software Distribution this directory holds all the temp file downloads, from Windows Update..

Zodiac · Nov 7, 2014

I know you don't want to hear it but it's just going to get worse as more updates are released. You need a bigger SSD.

Until then, you can also disable hibernate to save some space

powercfg -h off

turbo · Nov 7, 2014

Thanks I'll try that. I'm not ripping out the damn 40 GB SSD just to run my damn windows when I got a 250 GB SSD I had to pay to get modified to fit in my Ipower computer plus the huge external. Fucking retarded shit! Appreciate the quick feedback, hopefully that will work. WTF do the old people that can't even begin to comprehend why there computer magically got filled up and doesn't work do? Oh ya go get ripped off by a Best Buy geek squad!

turbo · Nov 7, 2014

Oh god the irony, so I had noticed .Net Framework 4.5 was on my computer when I was trying to delete files so I could download (the game; endless legend's kep crashing when I tried to run and saying I needed to download .Netframe). I deleted it and just reran the game and it works fine now....man wtf. Yes I wanted to spend 2 hours on my birthday trying to get space on my damn hardrive haha. Oh well, having a big day after birthday bash tomorrow which will include raiding my liquer cabinet that has about $2k worth of good shit that I never touch.

turbo · Nov 7, 2014

Still not seeing the windows update portion when I run this. It says you will only see it when I log on as Admin....is there something special I need to do? I got this computer new and only have 1 log in setup but I usually can right click things and select "run as admin" so I am assuming my user account has admin rights? If so anything I need to do to be in "admin" mode when running the disk clean up?

Nevermind - put it on my task bar and it allowed me to run as admin but its still not showing me the windows update line....I read it won't show if there isn't anything to delete but how the fuck can there not be when I have 19 GB taken up by god damn winsxs.

Noodleface · Nov 7, 2014

Why do uyou want bill gates to die? he's donated so much money and is a major humanitarian.

Frenzied Wombat · Nov 7, 2014

Turbo_sl said:
Still not seeing the windows update portion when I run this. It says you will only see it when I log on as Admin....is there something special I need to do? I got this computer new and only have 1 log in setup but I usually can right click things and select "run as admin" so I am assuming my user account has admin rights? If so anything I need to do to be in "admin" mode when running the disk clean up?

Nevermind - put it on my task bar and it allowed me to run as admin but its still not showing me the windows update line....I read it won't show if there isn't anything to delete but how the fuck can there not be when I have 19 GB taken up by god damn winsxs.

You need to make sure you have installed the SP/patch linked by FolanIron. Then when you run disk cleanup you will see the option to remove old windows updates.

Joeboo · Nov 7, 2014

Just FYI, SSDs run like shit when they are full. You always want to leave 15-20% of an SSD empty. You're basically negating the whole point of having your OS on an SSD if that SSD drive is packed full. Might as well be on a platter HD at that point.

Check this out:
AnandTech | The Crucial/Micron M500 Review (960GB, 480GB, 240GB, 120GB)

On a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD, its IOPS(Input/Output Operations Per Second) at completely full drops to the 5,000-10,000 range, whereas with 25% empty space, it leaps to the 50,000-100,000 range.

So basically, you can assume that a completely full SSD is about 10 times slower than an SSD with 25% of it's space open.

Alkorin · Nov 7, 2014

37GB for Win7 is fine, just don't install anything else on C:, at all. If you've installed other things there, move them or reinstall them elsewhere. That, and the cleanup tool, should work out fine for you moving forward. We use 40GB C: drives for our VDI virtual machines at work, and that's with Office 2010 and various apps installed. They have plenty of free space.

WinSxS is a copy of every single system file, ever. So, yes, it grows over time, unless you purge old files/service packs.

I just want to say, though, you're really mad and all, I get that -- but this made me chuckle:

Turbo_sl said:
I don't know jack shit about computers but am smart enough on some SQL application VM's to know we had to setup something to delete logs/files generated from our application or eventually the fucker is going to fill up.

Sounds like you know more than most of my clients. =D

Frenzied Wombat · Nov 7, 2014

Try running ccleaner too, it will catch a lot of junk and probably free up a few gigs.

Alkorin, I assume you have those 40GB C: drives locked down tighter than a nun's pussy? Back when SSD's first became affordable we tried sticking those 40GB Kingston SSD's in workstations and users were always hitting the limit. Unless we banned users from installing ITunes, Picassa, saving stuff to their desktop, and had scripts running emptying temp IE files and MS error reports, they'd hit the limit.

You using VDI in a corporate environment or school?

Alkorin · Nov 7, 2014

The desktops refresh on logoff and we use folder redirection (including the Desktop). That's why I mentioned "don't install anything on C:".

Corporate environment. Heavily controlled. If someone needs an app, it's ThinApp for them unless they make one hell of a good case to deploy the app across the entire system.

Frenzied Wombat · Nov 7, 2014

Alkorin_sl said:
The desktops refresh on logoff and we use folder redirection (including the Desktop). That's why I mentioned "don't install anything on C:".

Corporate environment. Heavily controlled. If someone needs an app, it's ThinApp for them unless they make one hell of a good case to deploy the app across the entire system.

We use folder redirection for My documents, but found that when we extended it to the desktop it slowed things down. Also, once in a blue moon someone would lose all their desktop items and would have to hit F5 to get them back, so we turned it off. That was back with Windows 2003 though, so it may have improved..

Interesting that you can get away with VDI and such a locked down environment in a corporate setting. If you don't mind me asking what kind of business is it? I work at a financial services firm and our users are quad monitor, Bloomberg, power Excel user types, and if I even proposed taking away local admin rights I'd get fucking killed. If a user was working late and needed to install some trading tool and either a) couldn't, or b) couldn't get a helpdesk guy to do it in under 30 seconds, we'd get reamed.

I also just inherited management of a small bank we acquired, and was welcomed into the shitstorm of an environment that has just finished migrating to VDI. The users are in fucking revolt, because their thin clients have video lag and suck 20mbit/sec WAN bandwidth each if they play a video with 2 monitors. Between the SAN, FC infrastructure, load balancer, VMware licensing, MS VDI license, and servers-- their TCO per VDI terminal is $2200 lol..

Folanlron · Nov 7, 2014

The one thing I've hated about doing system migrations too new thin clients... bank/stock systems are the worst systems in the world too work on, nothing like hearing them bitch and moan cause I have to do a hot-swap and the network will be down for about 3mins while the RAID systems reset the drive status.. I just wanna sit there and scream at them it has to be done...

Alkorin · Nov 7, 2014

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
We use folder redirection for My documents, but found that when we extended it to the desktop it slowed things down. Also, once in a blue moon someone would lose all their desktop items and would have to hit F5 to get them back, so we turned it off. That was back with Windows 2003 though, so it may have improved..

Interesting that you can get away with VDI and such a locked down environment in a corporate setting. If you don't mind me asking what kind of business is it? I work at a financial services firm and our users are quad monitor, Bloomberg, power Excel user types, and if I even proposed taking away local admin rights I'd get fucking killed. If a user was working late and needed to install some trading tool and either a) couldn't, or b) couldn't get a helpdesk guy to do it in under 30 seconds, we'd get reamed.

I also just inherited management of a small bank we acquired, and was welcomed into the shitstorm of an environment that has just finished migrating to VDI. The users are in fucking revolt, because their thin clients have video lag and suck 20mbit/sec WAN bandwidth each if they play a video with 2 monitors. Between the SAN, FC infrastructure, load balancer, VMware licensing, MS VDI license, and servers-- their TCO per VDI terminal is $2200 lol..

Government, so not difficult to get away with it -- so many rules and regulations in effect that a few more is hardly a surprise for most of our users. I've been in this job for years and I'm still surprised that the account forms aren't submitted in triplicate, just because red tape. They already know that they aren't supposed to store anything on their C: drives -- we don't bother solving most problems that take longer than 15 minutes, we just grab their drive and replace it with a freshly imaged one -- and folder redirection is on for everyone, including thick client users, so it's a seamless move when they do get lifecycled to a dumb terminal.

I think it helps that we have a tech on duty 24/7 (on rotation between about 10 of us). If we didn't, at a minimum, all of the VIPs would need a thick client forever. They wouldn't put up with that shit. We don't make anyone an administrator on their workstation without a damn good reason, though, so even then, it might not matter. Who knows.

No idea on TCO, haven't asked and am busy enough with the server side of things anyway. I don't do workstations for the most part. I'm involved on the vSphere / PCoIP side of things. One thing I can say, though, is the workstations lagged like a bitch until we threw the VDI replica images on SSD instead of on the SAN. That was probably a five-fold performance improvement right there. IOPS are absolutely king for VDI performance, especially in larger numbers.

Amusingly enough, by the way, that whole F5-to-get-your-desktop-back thing still happens. It's like any mapped drive under Windows. A second of glitchy network lag and your share handle may become invalid.

Edit: I think it helps that we already had the SAN, FC, load balancers etc. in place before the VDI initiative hit production. They were already there to support other things a long time ago. The engineering group just leveraged existing systems for VDI. Now, if only they would replace the 10 year old Cisco gear that we're hobbling along with... did I mention we still have 100Mb/s to the desktop? x_x

Frenzied Wombat · Nov 10, 2014

Alkorin_sl said:
They already know that they aren't supposed to store anything on their C: drives

And they listen to you? If I actually get 10% adherence to emails I send out concerning IT policies I consider myself fortunate lol.. Between the computer retards, the ones that treat their computers like a dorm room, and the VIP's that just delete my emails, people just do what the fuck they want unless they get an "access denied".

Amusingly enough, by the way, that whole F5-to-get-your-desktop-back thing still happens. It's like any mapped drive under Windows. A second of glitchy network lag and your share handle may become invalid.

Thanks for saving me the lab time to re-test

as I've wanted to re-implement this for a long time to deal with the "save to desktop" dipshits that store their entire life's work on their desktop rather than their home folder. Unfortunately, the F5 workaround wasn't good enough for management, so desktop redirection will have to remain off.

Edit: I think it helps that we already had the SAN, FC, load balancers etc. in place before the VDI initiative hit production. They were already there to support other things a long time ago. The engineering group just leveraged existing systems for VDI. Now, if only they would replace the 10 year old Cisco gear that we're hobbling along with... did I mention we still have 100Mb/s to the desktop? x_x

I actually don't really see the benefit of going beyond 100Mb/s to the desktop unless you work in some CAD/Video environment where people are regularly copying 50MB+ files to/from the server. In your average user environment with Word/Excel/PPT docs, opening web pages, and maybe client/server SQL traffic, I don't see how gigabit really helps things. It's like pouring a glass of water down a 10" pipe vs a 20" pipe. In both cases, all the water will reach the bottom at the same time.

Hachima · Nov 10, 2014

All the cleanup programs I've tried are horrible at cleaning up the winsxs folder. A bad culprit of making that folder huge is video card drivers. Montlhy updates adding an extra 100MB each update over time adds up. Format re-install is the best option I think unfortunately.

Alkorin · Nov 10, 2014

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
And they listen to you?

Well, whether they do or don't isn't really the issue. It's what happens when they save something to C: (after having been told not to), then come back the next day and find it gone, because their desktop refreshed. They complain, we tell them (again) that they can't save there, and they usually learn fairly quickly. Some get angry, but in the end, we told them multiple times. It's their own damn fault.

It usually only takes one person losing that memo that they were working on for an entire business day before they learn their lesson. Then again, this only applies to the people that have VDI, and once it started happening to a few people (they'd save shit to C:\Temp or whatever, and it would disappear), the news spread like wildfire. We very rarely hear about people losing shit on C: these days.

In the beginning of the project, the question wasn't whether they would listen -- we knew they wouldn't -- but whether management would have our backs when they inevitably lost their files. They did, and still do. The fact that the sessions are mostly locked down inhibits most people from saving things anyway. There are always the purebred idiots, but you can't engineer around them. They always find a way.

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
I actually don't really see the benefit of going beyond 100Mb/s to the desktop unless you work in some CAD/Video environment where people are regularly copying 50MB+ files to/from the server. In your average user environment with Word/Excel/PPT docs, opening web pages, and maybe client/server SQL traffic, I don't see how gigabit really helps things. It's like pouring a glass of water down a 10" pipe vs a 20" pipe. In both cases, all the water will reach the bottom at the same time.

Yeah. Google Earth, imagery and video editing and 100Mb/s are not friends. Beyond that, we don't notice. Those of us that do copy large files care, but really, those of us that deal in that many large files usually don't have VDI anyway. There are always cases for keeping thick clients around. Administrators, for example. One of my colleagues swears up and down that he can do everything he needs to do on his dumb terminal, until he needs to use USB. Or burn a DVD. Or use more than 2 monitors. Or... or or or. We poke holes in his bullshit arguments all the time and he doesn't listen.

ronne · Nov 12, 2014

Does your company make your admin/support department work from VDI stations? Because mine is trying to push that right now and they got kind of salty when I laughed in their faces.

Alkorin · Nov 12, 2014

One of our support guys uses one and swears by it. Then he complains that he can't do things (like use USB, which is off by policy, or burn DVDs/CDs), and we laugh at him.

The rest of us won't let the workstation lifecycle people touch our thick clients. I believe "you'll take it from me the day after I leave" has been used more than once.

God help...die Bill Gates (can't reduce my winsxs file)

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