Bloaty Windows 7

[CHR1S]

I'm having issues with Windows 7 bloat.

 

I have a base install size of roughly 11gb, then once office is installed and updates 30gb (give or take) however once put into use im seeing it bloat into the 60gb plus.

 

I have a load of 60gb SSDs that never had space issues until now. What would cause the sudden space increase?

 

Thanks

[simpsonj]

30gb of updates sounds excessive to me...

 

Anyhow, Have you tried running Window's own Disk Cleanup? Might help clearout any files that are no longer needed after Windows update has finished eating up all your space.

 

Is this the C:\Windows folder that's growing to such large proportions? Might be worth having a look with Treesize to see where all that space is going...

[free780]

I think there is a dism command that can cleanup the winsxs folder.

[Arthur]

I think there is a dism command that can cleanup the winsxs folder.

There is.

 

Windows 7

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

 

Windows 8.x

dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

[Zourous]

Or could it be offline files caching? Have a look at c:\windows\csc folder and check the size. I think there is a registry command to clear it but don't know it off hand.

[Arthur]

I think there is a registry command to clear it

 

REG ADD "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters" /v FormatDatabase /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
shutdown /r /t 10

[CHR1S]

Ive started with a fresh install in a VM and am doing the updates as we speak, will let you know how big it gets.

 

Thanks all

[Oaktech]

I'm seeing a similar thing... I have a 35ish Gb image, which when updated grows to almost 50Gb leaving 10Gb for student profiles, which only take up about 3gb. After a few weeks use the hard drives are completely full.

 

I've tried everything I can think of including most of the above tips. I'm just replacing our 60gb disks with larger conventional disks. The performance difference on the hardware is pretty negligible. Roughly a difference of 15 seconds on boot, 3 seconds on login.

[3s-gtech]

I can only use 60GB drives for very specific machines now, got a rolling replacement program of switching them out in place. They are just about holding for students whose profiles are deleted at logoff, but staff have local profiles and they're running well below 10GB. Using DISM cleanup has helped, but Windows Updates just gobble space.

 

Certain machines, like our exam laptops, are fine with 60GB drives though so they're not wasted.

[CraigM]

Not that it helps much, but Windows 7 was never designed for small hard drives per se, it predates the rise in popularity of SSD's after all. Throw in 6 years of patches, Office with varying years of patches and it quickly adds up. Windows 8.1 had a good idea with WIMBoot, and I believe Windows 10 is doing something similar/more advanced.

[CHR1S]

I managed to get the image size down to 31Gb with a custom windows install and careful office and app installs.

 

Wonder how quick it will become bloated?

[Oaktech]

I managed to get the image size down to 31Gb with a custom windows install and careful office and app installs.

 

Wonder how quick it will become bloated?

 

From my current experience, precisely the length of time it takes to do all windows/office updates and acquire 12 user profiles.

[psydii]

Take a look in the c:\windows\logs\cbs let me know what you see.

[CHR1S]

6 items, couple of hundred Mb (5 cabs and 1 text file)

[localzuk]

When you're doing the initial install, have you streamlined all the latest updates into the install media? So that you don't have to actually install updates - they're just part of the original install?

[CHR1S]

System restore off and were down to 23gb, this could become OCD

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

When you're doing the initial install, have you streamlined all the latest updates into the install media? So that you don't have to actually install updates - they're just part of the original install?

 

Not normally, i'm just building a new image as a VM so let it run update overnight.

[Chuckster]

System Restore in a network environment where a workstation is connected to the domain is pointless. Switching this off evidently saves on GBs.

[JLambert97]

Have you tried running treesize to see where the space is being used? Also how much RAM is in the machine