Why is windows such a hog for storage?

[neorichieb1971]

I don't know how many gigabytes Vista takes up, but its an awful lot.

Since it is used as a platform to launch software, why does it need so much room? Why are there literally 10's of 1000's of files?


Windows must be the most inefficient OS there is! I refuse to believe that I use all those files.

[crithit5000]

...run Linux?

I dunno, but I guess the mindset is that we're getting these huge harddrives standard with every machine sold now plus people want more shit to run on said machines. Couple that with all the possible hardware you can run and operating systems in general are just going to be huge. I can't speak for Vista, but it's just the trend it seems. Instead of slimming down, bloat it up.

[captpain]

I'm sure there's ten zillion drivers and other things you'll never use, but that doesn't make it inefficient in actual operation.

And honestly, who cares if it takes up a few gigs?

[BryanM]

People who like porn or rmvb's or games or using their harddrive.

[captpain]

People who like porn or rmvb's or games or using their harddrive.

It's not stopping me.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.nliteos.com/

There's a name for this process of lean installation, but I dun remember.

Oh gawrsh, the 4-8GB XP / Vista take means I can get two memory cards' worth fewer of pictures on my PC. Trajic

[Cthulhu]

I've never looked into this in great detail, but supposedly Windows is really bad about creating temp files galore and not deleting them. I tried deleting a metric assload of the temp files (on 98 I think?) and nothing seemed to go wrong, I don't know if XP will play as nicely.

[Ed Oscuro]

Temp files are rarely a problem anymore since Windows cleans it out now. You can generally delete anything a few weeks old though.

Windows 98...that's old enough that it still had the MSCREATE.DIR file issue, isn't it?

[worstplayer]

Shitton of bundled programs you'll never ever use are just a part of the problem. Shitty apps that don't clean up after themselves are another part. Vista makes it worse in that it disallows apps to keep their crap in their own directory and forces everything to use "my documents".

Oh, and CCleaner.

[ED-057]

I'm guessing that everytime someone at Microsoft writes a bit of code that they think could be used again they put it in a .DLL to be distributed with the OS. Then someone else complains that system routine xxx is crap and the right way to have implemented it is clearly yyy. So then another routine that does basically the same thing is written and added to the OS, and the first one remains for backwards compatibility. And eventually the OS ships, and it is 2-3x bigger than the last version and contains fifteen trillion system calls, the majority of which will never even be used by any given user.

Apparently a bare install of Windows 7 RC contains over 50,000 files. I found this out when I tried to run DOSSHELL and it bailed out with an error.

[jonny5]

+1 for ccleaner

[Ex-Cyber]

I had a big ugly post written, but while checking some things I came across this post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog, which has a lot of interesting information, so I suggest you just read that instead. What it basically comes down to is that they care a lot more about deployment robustness/serviceability than they do about disk space. However, disk space is becoming more of an issue as virtualization and SSDs start catching on.

[kernow]

MacosX isn't much better or smaller.

[BryanM]

Hey I only have a scrap of experience with Vista since I don't like aids, so I have a question about the insane My Documents stuff.

I noticed that it will allow you to save images/txt documents to a directory like the Good Lord intended, but then will hide it from you anytime you bring up that directory in a file view.

So does it seriously disallow applications from accessing this type of stuff, like creating a save file or accessing an image in its own subdirectory? It seems like it would be crazy, considering a fair deal of software depends on accessing that stuff from there. It's just an illusion the OS does to make your life a living hell, right? Right?

[Ed Oscuro]

I think you're confused about it not letting stuff show up in a file view, or search. What IS strange about it is that the path to My Documents is a system variable and its location can be unusual. By default in Vista it's simpler than it was in XP, being just c:\Users\username\Documents.

[BryanM]

Ah, that's what I thought. Was just being overly paranoid about any software I make working on it.

Thanks

[Herr Schatten]

MacosX isn't much better or smaller.

Since when do two wrongs make a right?

[kernow]

Uhm, never. Its just not windows thats a hog for storage thats all. Modern operating systems are large and complex, and thats all there is to it.

[null1024]

Vista installs the entire DVD to the hard drive. Then it installs [read: decompresses] what parts you selected. You don't need the DVD after installing except to reinstall the OS. Going into the Vista version of Add/Remove Programs [it has a different name, but I'm running Linux right now, I can't be arsed to reboot.], and selecting more Windows components works without the DVD in the drive, unlike in XP and below.

That's why it takes up so much space.

If anyone's wondering why Leopard takes up so much space... don't ask me. I haven't a clue, there's no reason for an OS to take up 9GB, unless it does the same as Vista with its DVD.

[Jockel]

Who wants Vista, if you can have Windows 7 or XP...
Or Linux, for that matter...

[worstplayer]

Ah, that's what I thought. Was just being overly paranoid about any software I make working on it.

Thanks

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

[Mortificator]

I've never looked into this in great detail, but supposedly Windows is really bad about creating temp files galore and not deleting them. I tried deleting a metric assload of the temp files (on 98 I think?) and nothing seemed to go wrong, I don't know if XP will play as nicely.

Vista can fill up almost your whole hard drive with shadow copies if you're not paying attention. It's the setup of a lot of out-of-the-box machines, and the average user who doesn't dick around with setting might wonder where all his storage space is going.

[neorichieb1971]

My point of view is that if an OS is there just to launch other programs it should be a nice efficient system. It takes Vista about 3 minutes to reach the desktop and about 2 more minutes before the HDD is starting to decellerate.

The whole idea that a OS should take more than 100mb is just proposterous to me. Even with all the bells and whistles, sounds and graphics, I'd say 1GB for the absolute best of the best OS.

The fact that the OS grows over time with temp files just worries me even more. I'm also concerned that doing a Norton scan takes about 90 minutes + hogging all your resources and most of the files its scanning I didn't put there. Windows is so overly complex that even its designers resort to "just re-install windows from scratch" whenever you have a problem.

Right now, my laptop crashes uses with any kind of torrent software with a blue screen. It only started doing this about 1 month ago, yet even with multiple updates, googling and what not, nobody can offer a solution. I think Windows 7 is the way forward, at least if they cut out the fat..

[Icarus]

MacosX isn't much better or smaller.

Snow Leopard (10.6) chopped off about 6GB from its install size from Leopard (10.5.6), and is now completely 64bit native.
Smaller and faster.

[captpain]

MacosX isn't much better or smaller.

Snow Leopard (10.6) chopped off about 6GB from its install size from Leopard (10.5.6), and is now completely 64bit native.
Smaller and faster.

Yeah, but it's still OSX.

[Ed Oscuro]

lol, paying for UNIX

[Udderdude]

These days, you can buy a 1 TB drive for $95. Storage is cheap. GB is the new MB.