Should you delete files in the WinSXS directory? And what’s the deal with VSS?

Article
08/06/2010

I like to read about how Windows is affecting peoples lives, specifically, the servicing components. One of the common threads I noticed in my recent web trolling was the question “Can I delete the \Windows\Winsxs directory to save space?”. This is usually asked in conjunction with what the directory does and why its consumed the space it has, but I’ve already covered that in prior posts.

So, to answer the question, the answer is simply: No.

Why? Because the component store (\Winsxs) is needed to repair the OS binaries in the event that a file becomes corrupted or, in worst case scenarios, compromised. There are a few directories in the component store so let’s look at them and what their general role is in Windows.

\Winsxs\Catalogs: Contains security catalogs for each manifest on the system
\Winsxs\InstallTemp: Temporary location for install events
\Winsxs\Manifests: Component manifest for a specific component, used during operations to make sure files end up where they should
\Winsxs\Temp: Temp directory used for various operations, you’ll find pending renames here
\Winsxs\Backup: Backups of the manifest files in case the copy in \Winsxs\Manifests becomes corrupted
\Winsxs\Filemaps: File system mapping to a file location
\Winsxs\<big_long_file_name>: The payload of the specific component, typically you will see the binaries here.

So, can you delete these? Sure, you could I guess. What would happen? Well, it depends. So long as the files in the \Windows\System32 directory are valid, most likely you wouldnt see any problems initially, the machine would “most likely” operate properly. However, the first time you attempt to update a binary, apply a service pack or service a component, it’s going to fail because the backing components needed arent there. The way the files end up in \System32 are via hardlinks. This should help answer another common question I see regarding how VSS is used in servicing. Short answer: It’s not. We use NTFS hardlinks to project the file to the file system from the component store. That’s why the \Winsxs directory is so important. The files there can be seen as the “authoritative” versions on the file system. When you encounter an issue and that binary needs to be replaced, running an SFC /SCANFILE against it will check the directories above and if the version doesnt match, it will re-project it so that its working.

Here’s an example of how you can see the hardlink via CLI:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers>fsutil hardlink list ntfs.sys
\Windows\System32\drivers\ntfs.sys
\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-ntfs_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_02661b64369ca03a\ntfs.sys

This isnt the best overall example but its one I use often as a quick and dirty way to see the links in the OS. You can see that the NTFS file has a link to the \Winsxs directory and if that version of NTFS were to become corrupted, we could go back to the component store and find you a new copy. The backup directory in \Winsxs is there in the event that the version in that directory has also become corrupted. It’s a good way of having protection on the OS without consuming a huge amount of space.

Also, as Andre mentions in the comment below, its worth noting that the new servicing structure does remove the $NTUninstall$ folders that many people have become accustomed to from Windows NT to Windows 2003. Updates, if they are marked removable, no longer contain that structure. Instead, updates are recommended to be removed via the Control Panel --> Programs --> View Installed Updates path. You can remove the updates via the appropriate switches in DISM.EXE or PKGMGR.EXE, but the control panel method tends to be cleaner.

Hope that helps.

--Joseph

Comments

Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bear, thats the nature of the hardlinks (again, I have a blog on this too <G>). Explorer will count the files twice because of the linking mechanisms.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
but this only saves a small amout of HDD space. removing older Updates and the compression saves much more space.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Drew; Boot critical is something we determine in house. It's not anything you could update offline.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Yes, it sounds like you have more at work than just the directory size. Run CheckSUR on the machine and see what it reports (KB947821)
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
No worries, I totally understand that. I have a couple pieces of content on FoD in Win8/2012: blogs.technet.com/.../features-on-demand-in-windows-8-and-windows-server-2012.aspx blogs.technet.com/.../understanding-features-on-demand-and-role-persistence-in-windows-server-2012.aspx I'd like to assume you've read them but then I never assume anything :) --Joseph
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
In addition, there are other things, like Features on Demand which allow you to reclaim space in Windows 8.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Sure, send it to me via the contact link in the blog.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Correct :)
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I'm not sure what NESSUS uses to check the validity of files. Date/timestamp has never been a reliable way of checking files if that's what it's using. If it's using the file version, which would be the best way to query them, then I would be more concerned. When you look at the files being reported, how does the version information map to the latest updates for the files?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Paul, run TreeSizeFree (www.jam-software.com/treesize_free) and look which other folders use a lot of space and look if you can delete or move some data.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Will, What operating system and service pack are you running?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Sebastien, What did you use to determine your size on disk?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bear; Leho is correct, your machine will not be in a servicable state and may fail to function properly if you delete the directory. What else do you have on the system drive that is taking up the other 10GB? It might be better to move some of it to another drive (your 1TB) if is not needed.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Alireza this only works if you have installed the Sp1 ;) In WIndows 8 run this: DISM.exe /Online /Disable-Feature /Featurename:<name> /Remove Run this to get the features: DISM.exe /Online /English /Get-Features /Format:Table Next run this command with the featurename: DISM.exe /Online /Disable-Feature /Featurename:SimpleTCP /Remove this disables the feature and removes the files from WinSxS.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
ok.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bearxor 16GB is too small, get at least a 32-60GB drive. You can run TreeSizeFree to see which other folders take space and use www.bitsum.com/MoveAndLink.php to move some data to your 1TB drive.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Ken; Good question. Basically the way we look at things is by architecture type for that particular file. AMD64 has commonly been confused since the release of x64 operating systems but internally that refers to any processor that is x64 capable. It does not refer specifically to AMD processors. x86 files are usually native files for backwards compatibility for some of the older code that still exists in the OS which hasnt been removed completely, thats usually a small number of files. wow64 is exactly what you said, they assist in a shimming capacity for 32bit apps for x64 OS but it might also be a 32bit file thats been recompiled. But to answer your last question, yes, every x64 installation will include all of the files above and its completely normal. Let me know if you have more questions. --Joseph
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks for the comments Pete. I understand what you're saying but I will disagree with you in that its the servicing mechanisms keeping Windows from smaller form factor devices. While it might be a small portion of the portability problem to those form factors, the very existence of the servicing mechanisms is what makes porting to different classes of devices easier in the long run for us. Because we're componentized we have the ability to generate new SKUs more readily than we did in the past. From an I/O perspective, the servicing mechanisms arent much different than it was in XP. We still have a pendingfilerename type operation that happens on boot, just like we did in XP, its just that you now have an indicator telling you that it happens rather than not. The file copy on boot is still about the same. However, all that being said, I can tell you that this feedback is given directly to the product teams and they take the feedback seriously. What that means for future products I'm not at liberty to tell you, but this does get to their ears, so feel free to keep it coming.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Are you installing SP1 as part of your Windows Updates? That's going to increase the size on disk. This can be paired down using the DISM command in my blog (/spsuperseded). I have other blogs about why the directory is the size that it is.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks Andre, I've added an update. I appreciate the comment.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Have you used COMPCLN to make SP2 permanent? Another thing, install and uninstall a feature you dont need and reboot the system to see if you need a lot of things scavenged out.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I've written numerous blogs about the specifics of the space usage, in your case you can use the COMPCLN tool to pin SP2 and reclaim some of your used space.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
(Reposting this since the first one failed for whatever reason.) I'm going to beat a dead horse but first I want to say that I've read your two posts on hardlinks, this post, all comments on all three posts, the Disk Space article by Steven Sinofsky and I myself am very familiar with both NTFS hardlinking and how Windows occupies a disk. I'm going to refer to the following tools: Disk Usage or DU ( http://goo.gl/xUunj ) and Duplicate Cleaner ( http://goo.gl/Ly9OY ). I'm going to write this as if I'm performing a proof of concept. The concept is that during initial installation of Windows (7 Ultimate 64bit in this example) the /winsxs directory is "projected" file-by-file into the install directory we'll call /windows for simplicity by way of hardlinks. You further explain that files residing in /winsxs remain hardlinked to their respective "projections" in /windows after installation. I'm going to make the assumption that subsequent updates add a new file to /winsxs and the "projection" in /windows is changed to reflect the new file. I'm further going to assume that your explanation is that while the operational files in /windows are hardlinks of the up-to-date versions in /winsxs the old files may remain causing the bloat you attempt to address in this article. Your proposed reasoning is that Windows and its services use the /winsxs directory as the authoritative source for the files in /windows directory and without these files there are Windows functions that will fail. You explain what a hardlink is accurately and correctly. You give examples of the Windows GUI showing /winsxs directories in excess of 10 GiB. You explain the structure of /winsxs and I'll take you at your word. You don't show the actual usage of the /winsxs directory compared to /windows. Allow me to provide an example in the following set of screen-shots: http://goo.gl/Zak5k DU on both /windows and /winsxs http://goo.gl/nIui8 Duplicate Cleaner results on /windows http://goo.gl/uzmcV Duplicate Cleaner results on /windows with /winsxs excluded Now due to technical limitations (I'm using this Windows installation to present this information) there may be discrepancies in the exact byte numbers in any two counts and I'll assume this number not to exceed 1% in either direction between any two counts after repeated testing (three runs of each) to ensure consistency. I'll also admit that MD5 hashing can produce collisions and a more scientific proving should use SHA-256 for best results. The Duplicate Cleaner results show that indeed /winsxs holds files that are MD5 duplicates of at least some percentage of the files in /windows and the DU results show that this percentage is not hardlinked. Please verify these results if you find any error in my methodologies. I'm not going to argue that these files are useless nor will I recommend any user delete them. In fact these files are very important if any user should intend to uninstall any Windows update, although I will point out that there are updates that can't be uninstalled. My point in this is that /winsxs really is too big. While the typical size is between 3 and 8 GiB for moderate aged installations I've seen it as large as 30 GiB as reported by DU and this is an unacceptable size; there is no logic to /winsxs growing to three times the size of a "clean" install for any reason, even backup. My only safe solution for these unfortunate users that experience this bloat is re-installing Windows which is often a massive undertaking for the average Windows user. While There are tools and options to reclaim portions of this bloat, there remains a forever lost, sizable amount of valuable disk space especially in mobile solutions or when a single SSD is the Windows boot device. Now this isn't the first time I've been compelled to write about this ( http://goo.gl/6U9pE ) and I see the same misinformation being spread; it needs to stop.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Deneen; Thanks for the comment. The purpose of this directory is to serve as a temporary storage location for any servicing operations that need to be performed on a reboot. When a machine has a pended reboot, it will populate this area with its payload as well as a file called pending.xml. When the machine reboots, it checks to see if it has any operations that had something pended for it to finish installing/cleaning up. We utilize the payload, registry and pending.xml to make all of this happen. You could delete the pending.xml file and see if that helps with whatever particular problem you are seeing. However, you would not want to delete the directories because they contain payload files for a specific use. --Joseph
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I wouldn't expect Winsxs to change, the files there aren't application related, they're Windows. I would expect your Installer directory to be smaller (assuming the software removed itself properly)
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Run one of the online programs that gives you an output by directory. I've used Tree Size in the past to get a quick view: www.jam-software.com/.../index.shtml there are others out there as well
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
No, the Office files are application files (similar to other apps) and aren't part of a servicing operation.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Mike; Check out the post on how hard links work for more information (blogs.technet.com/.../how-hard-links-work.aspx) but to answer your questions:

Yes there is only one file record segement in the MFT per file
Yes, projection = reference in the verbiage above. We call it a projection in terms of CBS. Reference is the proper NTFS term
No, if a projection becomes corrupted, then it can be reprojected so long as the file record segment is not corrupted. Remember its a reference to the file record segement, not the file record segment itself.
False, you can recover a corrupted projection using either SFC or CHKDSK, depending on if the link is broken or the file record segment itself is corrupted. If the file record segement faces true file system corruption that cannot be fixed, then you would need to replace the file manually. As for your point about space in WINSXS, there is a good blog written by one of the Windows PMs that references this: blogs.msdn.com/.../disk-space.aspx The portion of this that answers your question most directly is as follows: While it’s true that WinSxS does consume some disk space by simply existing, and there are a number of metadata files, folders, manifests, and catalogs in it, it’s significantly smaller than reported. The actual amount of storage consumed varies, but on a typical system it is about 400MB. While that is not small, we think the robustness provided for servicing is a reasonable tradeoff. So why does the shell report hard links the way it does? Hard links work to optimize disk footprint for duplicate files all over the system. Application developers can use this functionality to optimize the disk consumption of their applications as well. It’s critical that any path expected by an application appear as a physical file in the file system to support the appropriate loading of the actual file. In this case, the shell is just another application reporting on the files it sees. As a result of this confusion and a desire to reduce disk footprint, many folks have endeavored to just delete this directory to save space. --Joseph

Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Sounds like you didn't effectively take ownership of the entire directory. What are you looking to do with TAKEOWN exactly? If you manually delete files from the directory, you do so at your own risk as we don't support it officially.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Sure thing Drew....and keep the ideas coming. I've used a lot of the ideas I get from all of you here and brought them in front of the product group. It makes our porducts better for you in the long run because while I support them (and you by default), I dont run an organization thats reliant on Microsoft products, so I dont always know what it is that needs to be fixed.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Drew; Explorer sees each hard link as an individual reference to that file, so that's why it gets counted twice. This is probably going to come out the wrong way, but you're thinking to simple when it comes to the code change you're recommending. Changing code in explorer.exe can have many, many unforseen circumstances, so just adding an attribute would be a major undertaking. You would most likely need to re-write that entire binary
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
If you have a 33GB Winsxs directory then you most likely have a problem. Usually I say anything over 12-15GB would be the maximum I would say is normal. What's taking up the size in the directory and when was the last time it was rebooted?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bearxor: in comparison, a fully functional Gentoo install with full build toolchain and XBMC can be had usually within half a gig. That's 500 MB total. Gentoo just happens to be the one I know deeply, no need to comment about it specifically. I'm sure you can get a pre-built distro like TinyCore in the same or probably even less space. Makes one think these days, not even only when your drive constraint is 16GB. If purebred HTPC is your goal, I'm not sure at all.. why W7 again?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Rahul, It depends on the situation. If you're in a no-boot due to an update installation, you can always use the /revertpendingactions flag I speak about in another entry on here. As for replacing system files, boot off of media and into WinRE and pull them from the DVD or another machine.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bearxor which Windows 7 Edition/SKU do you use? Lower SKUs have a reduced function set, which results in a lower amount of installed packages and a lower WinSxS usage. Also install a x86/32Bit version to reduce the WinSxS usage (64Bit Windows include a lot of 32Bit DLLs to get 32Bit apps working. This is called WOW64)
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Anonymous again, uninstall old updates, this is the only way to reduce the size. Open regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionComponent Based ServicingComponentDetectamd64_microsoft-windows-ie-htmlrendering_31bf3856ad364e35_0.0.0.0_none_933ba3cd22b12888 look which file version has the highest number. This is the latest IE update which you have to keep. remove all other updates in the control panel->programs->uninstal updates.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Joseph What is the relationship between Software Distribution (currently 744Mb size on disk) and winsxs (currently 8.12Gb size on disk). I have installed all updates with the exception of SP1 on W7 Home Premium 6.1 7600.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Yup, I published an entry on that a while back. I also have a KB you can reference in your blog if you like which covers some other stuff you can do: support.microsoft.com/.../EN-US
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Bearxor Windows reports the wrong size (MS discussed to fix in Windows 7 but I didn't happen). Most files are hardlinks (1 file linked into several folders). All the Windows DLL/Exe files are stored in the WinSxS folder and linked to C:Windows, C:WindowsSystem32 or C:Program Files. Run TreeSize and look for other folders which take space and move them with my linked tool.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Already answered in the blog post: So, to answer the question, the answer is simply: No.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
A clean install of Win7 is usually between 6-8GB + page file once its completed. So, you should be looking at 8GB-physical RAM as available free space once everything is patched. My guess is that this machine has 4-8GB of RAM and that moving the page file to another drive would free up the space you're looking for.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Honestly, unless the tool was from us I wouldnt trust the output. Explorer doesnt do a good job of reporting actual size on disk.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Jordan update to Win8 to abe able to clean WinSxS ( www.msfn.org/.../page__view__findpost__p__1015509 ) or 8.1: (www.msfn.org/.../page__view__findpost__p__1043834)
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks, that's what I was "hoping" it would be. My guess is that your user hit this: blogs.technet.com/.../what-is-blobs-bin-and-why-does-it-grow.aspx See if you have a blobs.bin in the ManifestCache, if so, delete it and reboot and you should be fine.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@olivier: compcln isnt a serviced binary so its not linked to anyone. for all of the files in the OS, you'd either need a fsutil script of some sort or another tool. What exactly are you looking for?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Glad that worked out for you. Luckily, this was one we fixed in later versions, it was pretty rare though.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
No problem. The question gets asked a lot. 7.5GB would be within the expected range of tolerance, so you look fine there. You can mark the service packs permanent on Vista installations which will scavenge some space out for you, just look for COMPCLN.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
No, servicing wont work if the folder is compressed.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Nope, on Win7 we scavenge automatically, so you're all set. We'll have a DISM switch for pinning SP1 when it releases though.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
In Win8 some files are compressed (Backup and Manifest folders) when you run the DiskCleanup.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@Frank, Corruption is what it is, and it can happen to any file regardless of if its part of a servicing operation or not. As to your other point, we've implemented ways in Win8 for users to reduce footprint even more so than what we've done in the past to address some of the concerns mentioned here. The Office language updates aren't a part of OS servicing or CBS but because they're held in the installer directory, they shouldn't be removed.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Yes, 17.8GB would be large to me. What OS is this on and what roles/feature/service pack level are you?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Anything over 11-12GB would be alarming to me.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Note: perhaps what I was saying about explorer and perceived size of WinSxS is in reality another way of saying: "dism is under the same spell as is explorer and is also counting hardlinks into the wim size." If that is the case, something is really wrong here :) But again, I would think that it's possible that hardlinks are not contributing that significantly to size of either the wims or reported folder sizes in explorer. However, it would be fruitful to know if dism is counting hardlinks as real files as well, and thus swelling up the images unnecessarily. What do you think, joscon?
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
SoftwareDistribution is where we cache downloads coming from Windows Update. You can rename the directory and we will rebuild it the next time you run Windows Update, but its not something I generally recommend. If you're confident that all of your updates are installed properly, that will allow you to regain that space. --Joseph
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
@joscon I am aware what the risks of using vLite or reduction scripts (really the same thing) potentially entail where it comes to WinSxS, which is of course why I made the pronounced 'personal use' stipulation. And I do appreciate your concern. However, I have used vLite on Windows 7 images for years now, albeit intermittently, and never had any problem and I run hundreds of applications on my system, many of which intensive. I also think that third-party slimming tools would not be used (or at least not as widely and, supposedly, indiscriminately) if people indeed have any alternative at all. If anything, tools like vLite have proven that many features of Windows are quite modular and can be taken out (such as Speech, Natural Language, etc.) and still have an operating system that is fully functional for personal use (given one would not need Accessibility, Speech, etc.). I love to weak and modify my own images, and mostly rely on Microsoft's own deployment tools to do so, but as it is these are quite limited in many ways as far as customization and slimming go. Just as custom PE images can be very useful for certain purposes, so can custom Windows build be for the interested and determined :) But I understand you work for Microsoft and cannot and would not want to give the impression that using slimming scripts or tools is OK, and personally I would not recommend just anyone using them either. I have also seen many problems happen to people who indiscriminately used such tools. Then again, I would not want regular users to be messing with WADK either :) So I cordially take your words in that light, if not in any other. The reason the WinSxS situation peaked my interest again lately was due to the fact there are now some additional DISM commands available for Windows Server 2012 editions, letting one remove Features stored (but possibly unused, depending on your usage) in WinSxS. I am still exploring the possibilities of these new DISM features, which, if they work as some have reported, may reduce WinSxS content by 2gb on a live install, which could in turn amount to several hundred mb's (perhaps upto 600-700mb if my calculation is correct) so this is definitely something worth looking into.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Dean; Fair point. You are correct in that there is a real file there with multiple "references". I think this would be a good blog entry, let me work something up and I will post it after the new year. Thanks. --Joseph
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
From personal experience dealing with Windows 7 and 8 installs, working with VM's and performing syspreps and monitoring WinSxS folder sizes, I would say that too much has been made about 'hardlinks' and how they contribute to WinSxS folder size (as reported by exporer). If you use a script or vLite to reduce WinSxS, you will find that it's not just explorer causing WinSxS to appear huge, because when you build images with reduced WinSxS folders you will see that image is significantly reduced in size. The actual install.wim's and or iso's are much, much smaller. To give an example: a fully updated Windows 8 x64 iso of 3.4gb will go up to about 4.6gb in size (from the install.wim perspective this means around 1.2gb added). When you perform WinSxS removal with vLite, the install.wim becomes smaller than the original iso install.wim by several 100 mb's. So a fully updated install.wim may end up around 2.8gb in size, compared to the 3gb original install.wim that is not updated. In my experience (and currently I am working with Window Server 2012) I have not found any detriment in using vLited installs (or installs with their WInSxS folder reduced). But this, of course, is from a personal computing perspective, and I would not recommend using removal scripts or vLite for any other purpose than a personal one. That is not to say I agree with Microsoft's current approach to WinSxS, but I can't claim to have the oversight and knowledge to determine how it could be done differently in a reliable manner. However, I am aware of a tool for Vista that allows for reduction of WinSxS's size, and if it could be done for Vista than I don't understand why it hasn't been done for Win7 and 8 as well. I did read you proposed something like this, joscon, but I'm afraid such a tool will not be made given what I've read. vLite, when you select the WinSxS removal option, states that live installation of updates may fail when WinSxS is removed, but that offline integration (via Dism) should not be affected and would still be viable. I haven't been able to fully verify these claims, but can say I have installed updates successfully and have integrated updates successfully, but as yet cannot say with certainty if WinSxS reduction has significantly impacted updating (live or offline). It has been mentioned on various sites that WinSxS reduction would not allow one to uninstall integrated updates when said reduction would be done after installing/integrating those updates. This, of course, would make sense.
Anonymous
August 06, 2010
You should also explain that the WinSxS folder replaces the old $NTUninstall folders from XP. So that the people understand better that it grows after installing Updates.
Anonymous
August 08, 2010
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Anonymous
August 08, 2010
In my comment above, I meant "It should NOT be engineered to take this much disk space."
Anonymous
August 16, 2010
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Anonymous
August 17, 2010
Should I mention for everyone a cool utility I found (very rare and probably one of its kind) that shws the actual size of any directory minus the special NTFS junction points (hard links, sym links etc). It's called cttruesize and can be downloaded here: www.heise.de/.../50272 Even with this utility and correct switches used, the size of WinSxS is unacceptable as a user. Hope this feedback goes to the Windows teams.
Anonymous
September 05, 2010
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Anonymous
September 20, 2010
Hi, You talked abt the difficulties in replacing the binaries in one of the comments above.. How do we accomplish it in the newer OS, especially when the system does not boot or result in a endless time at applying/configuring updates.
Anonymous
September 26, 2010
The WinSxS folder is consuming 35% of my total disk space - 23.2GB and this is by design? This is not acceptable! There should at least be a way for "Power Users" to disable this.
Anonymous
September 26, 2010
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Anonymous
November 30, 2010
Thanks for explaining. A Simple question: an enormous number of the 10,000+ files in my WINSXS and the 3,000+ files in WINSXSBACKUP start with "amd64_" and many others start with "wow64_" and with "x86_" I looked up "wow64_" and it relates to running 32-bit apps in a 64-bit Windows OS. Great. If know that I have an Intel CPU in my Dell. Is it correct to assume that the "x86_" files apply to that processor? I don't know if there is another processor (graphics?) that is related to AMD on this system, but I have an nVidia video card. Does Windows 7 64 need the "amd64_" files in WINSXS and WINSXSBACKUP if there's no AMD processor on the system? Does every Win 7 install have both AMD and x86 files? Thanks
Anonymous
November 30, 2010
Thanks for the quick and informative reply. WINSXS occupies 7.5 GB of my 41 GB partition which is why it drew my attention. Windows 7 takes about 16 GB, Program Files (x86) 3 GB....so I'm always looking to work on how much space is used. I have an SSD and the C: partition can't be extended because the other space on it lies "to the left" of the system partition.
Anonymous
November 30, 2010
I think this was a clean install of Windows 7. So does COMPCLN apply? Thanks.
Anonymous
December 25, 2010
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
December 26, 2010
Joseph, You still didn't explain this projection stuff. That's what I don't understand. Somewhere there HAS to be a real file otherwise your operating in fantasy land. And if there is only ONE file and the other versions are these so called projections then only the one file can actually get damaged and be replaced. Maybe you can do a seperate blog posting explaining projection. I think we as technical users really need to understand this since it is so fundamental to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
Anonymous
January 22, 2011
Dear Jos- I am only just now having issues with this winsxs folder. LogonIU.exe is a 'corrupt file' and supposedly is in the Temp folder of winsxs.All that I have been getting as I read different forums about winsxs is confusion, anger at microsoft and just plain frustrated that I cannot locate an answer to MY questions in reference to winsxs. Mostly I just found complaints, grumbling and not much in the way of answering all of the issues of the winsxs folder. I would like to address specifically the TEMP folder that has not been addressed either by you or anyone else for that matter and I am hoping(since you seem to be the most coherent of anyone so far) that you may be able to give me an answer or try to find an answer if you do not know one. winsxstemp : contains Pending Renames Pending Deletes If this is a TEMP folder why is it we cannot delete that which is only temporary? Why can't we delete the Pending Deletes or Renames? Thanks a bunch for ANY asistance Deneen
Anonymous
January 26, 2011
No, this makes no sense. Re-read Dean's comment. If hardlinks are used, then there is only one real copy of the file. True or false? If there is only one copy of the file, then its "projection" is a reference. True or false? If the projection becomes corrupted, and there is only one copy of the file, then all references become corrupted. True or false? Therefore if your projection becomes corrupted, you CANNOT restore from winsxs because it's merely a reference to the same file - and it, by extension, is also corrupted. True or false? Now perhaps something more interesting - if the winsxs folders are full of references, then it stands to reason that those references are not actually taking up any ADDITIONAL space. So when I see that my winsxs folder is 8GB, does that INCLUDE the space used by the hardlinked files? I'm guessing it DOES, because although they're hardlinks, they do refer to files that take up space. *nix would work the same way. So what I'm saying is - users can PROBABLY add up all of the space used by "Winsxs<big_long_file_name>", and DEDUCT it from the amount of space used by the Winsxs folder itself, since those GB's are just references to the same GB's in use by the OS. How much space does that save everybody?
Anonymous
February 18, 2011
Joseph: I understand how hard links work, but they aren't the problem: Win7 Explorer reports that winsxs is 7.2 GB. After reading this post and your previous comments, I decided to see how much of that 7.2 GB was really erroneously counted hard links. The answer: a whopping 189 MB. Based on this information, I'm a bit confused as to why I need 7GB worth of file record segments. Especially since, if I understood what you've been trying to say, the 189 MB of files that have hard links are probably the most important (or at least the most-used) files on my system. If I were talking about a server installation, I would completely agree with the logic of "disk storage is cheap, so throw in everything, plus the kitchen sink." Nearly every production server I've dealt with has had the OS installed on a dedicated RAID 1(or 10) disk that was at least 2/3 empty. Given the cost of downtime vs storage, choosing a "belts and braces" approach makes complete sense. When it comes to my single disk notebook, however, I have a different set of priorities...especially considering I have a 58GB partition for the OS (and some programs - I've had to install others to my data partition). In any case, 7GB is ridiculous for data that might (but probably won't) be used on my system. Maybe I can see it for a certain amount of time post-install, but there needs to be a tool that we can run once the system has been operating long enough to mostly separate the wheat from the chaff.
Anonymous
February 28, 2011
What is the expected range of tolerance for WinSxS size on Windows 7?
Anonymous
March 01, 2011
Using cttruesize (ctts.exe) and excluding redundant hard links (ctts.exe -s:99 -la -a -l <dirpath>), size of my C:WindowsWinSxS Windows 7 is 7.13 GB (Explorer shows it as 9.19 GB because it doesn't exclude redundant hard links ) I had installed some non-security hotfixes and all security hotfixes since RTM. Now I ran out of disk space on this 40 GB partition (I have apps installed as well) so I will repartition it to 80 GB and install SP1 integrated image. Windows 7 disk space consumption was NOT my idea. Also, can you please clarify where is the 400 MB that Steven Sinofsky arrives at in this blog entry?: blogs.msdn.com/.../disk-space.aspx He says the real size of WinSxS upon clean install is 400 MB which I find is blatantly false. It's in GBs, not MBs. If that's a typo, it's misleading.
Anonymous
March 02, 2011
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
March 02, 2011
Lastly, how is the total free disk space calculated? Whatever size the CBS store takes, why does the total free disk space reported in the volume's properties keep on decreasing? There is some underestimation or misinterpretation of disk space consumed by WinSxS.
Anonymous
March 02, 2011
It's certainly trustworthy as for a folder without junction points like any system folder from XP, the sizes reported by ctts and explorer exactly match. The "Brutto" (German for "Gross" size matches Explorer's Size in Properties and the one called "Total" in ctts matches Size on disk of Explorer. I am merely trying to verify from Microsoft the true and exact actual size of WinSxS on a clean Windows 7 install.
Anonymous
March 05, 2011
Joseph, reflecting on the comments for this post and others on your blog regarding the size of WinSxS and other folders like "Driver Store", could you explain why folders such as these are currently 'hardwired' to locations like %windir%winsxs ? Why, for example, can't this folder be relocated to D:WinSxS ? What's so important about having this folder on %systemdrive% ? Ideally, Windows setup might allow the creation of a separate partition, let's call it the Administrative partition, that contained, for example; • WinSxS • hiberfil.sys • pagefile.sys • Driver Store • Recoveryinstall.wim • System Volume InformationVolume{GUIDs(allOnDisk)} Presumably, the reasons these files and folders (except the paging file) could not be moved to a separate partition would be several and varied, but it would be interesting to know what the technical constraints are in each case.
Anonymous
March 05, 2011
Yes, of course hardlinks are specific to a volume. I should have remembered that. :-)
Anonymous
March 11, 2011
Is there a road-map for solving the problem "Explorer doesnt do a good job of reporting actual size on disk"? Its the central file-manager for all current windows-versions, maybe thats reason enough to work on it ? At the moment the output of any 3rd party tool (like cttruesize) is more trustworthy than the Explorer-output unless it written in the same bad way.
Anonymous
March 15, 2011
CompCln.exe doesn't has links in winSxs on my system fsutil hardlink list compcln.exe How can I list other files which have not their backup in WinSxs?
Anonymous
March 19, 2011
Joseph, how is the file set WinsxsBackup determined? How does the servicing stack know if a file is boot-critical, and should be copied to this folder? Is 'boot-critical' flagged in the manifest files? Does the list of files in this folder exist anywhere on the system, in an XML file, for example? I'm wondering if it would ever be possible to update this folder offline, if required, using a known good list, and the product DVD.
Anonymous
March 20, 2011
Thanks Joseph. Just to be sure by "update offline", i meant fix if corrupted, not change the definition of.
Anonymous
April 08, 2011
So what should I do if I have a virtual machine (Windows Server 2008 Sp1) with a 40GB C:/ partition with a WinSXS folder that is 33.1Gb's?
Anonymous
April 09, 2011
@joscon "It’s critical that any path expected by an application appear as a physical file in the file system to support the appropriate loading of the actual file. In this case, the shell is just another application reporting on the files it sees." Do you mean that applications like Explorer really don't know anything about hardlinks, and that all hardlinked files appear as 'real' files to all user mode applications? That would make sense, but does it also mean that it is inherently difficult to get Explorer reporting correct folder sizes for folders containing hardlinks? Explorer understands old-style file attributes (i call them FAT attributes), so is it conceivable that adding a new FAT attribute "L" on files that are hardlinks could allow Explorer and other apps to report folder sizes correctly? If paths appear as physical files to applications then it raises the issue as to what happens when an app wants to write to a file that is actually a hardlink. How will it be made to appear to the app that the data was written to a physical object in the expected path? I can think of two possibilities. Either the app has no real knowledge of the physical location or extents of the data it reads/writes to/from disk, it just accepts everything the I/O system tells it, and therefore the 'appearing phyical' requirement is essentially a moot point - or - the app can write to the expected location so that the $Data attribute for expected location can exist independently and be different from the $Data attribute of the original file from which the hardlink to expected location was created. I'm trying to work out how this would work in the NTFS structure, but it does superficiallly explain why files in system32 can become corrupt and need replacing with the 'authoritive' versions in winsxs, even though these files have been projected.
Anonymous
April 09, 2011
Understood. It wasn't so much a recommendation as a hypothetical. I realize that even a small change anywhere in Windows can have many known and unknown consequences. In fact i would suggest to any non-Microsofty that given the size, complexity, and number of subsystems within Windows, the fact that it even works, let alone very reliably in most cases, is one of the greater achievements of modern civilization. I'm all for hearing that any suggestion or comment i make here is simplistic or silly, if that's the case, just as much as if i come up with something useful. The point is to learn as much as it is to post bright ideas, and i've learn't a lot from reading your blog. Much appreciated Joseph.
Anonymous
April 10, 2011
A Microsoft product group meeting. Now there's something i'd like to go to! Speaking of ideas, i've got a note on my phone called 'Windows feature wish list' that i add to occasionally and is now quite long. Perhaps i could email it to you? Looking through it just now i noticed a section i wrote a while back about adding a new file system attribute U, for User defined, that would allow marking specific files or folders in a tree, so that utilities like Robocopy could effectively copy from, for example, sales*april , by copying from sales with switch /IA:U , by prior marking all april folders with attrib U. What a great idea! <G>
Anonymous
April 27, 2011
Anything over >12gb a problem? Mine is 17.8gb. Manifest kicks in at 750mb, backup 502mb, a dozen or so folder come down at 295mb each, then most fall off to 33mb and lower. A total of nearly 20,000 folders!!
Anonymous
April 27, 2011
Vista64, Ultimate, SP2
Anonymous
April 27, 2011
Hi, I'm on Vista64 Ultimate, SP2. Desktop use only, single user, homeworker - AMD Athlon Dual Core - nothing exotic.
Anonymous
April 27, 2011
Thanks for advice so far. COMPCLN executes and terminates nearly instantly - so I'm guessing my install of SP2 is already 'flattened'. Trying to add a feature (Telnet and Solitaire!) just now, the 'please wait' dialogue is hanging open, no progress. Tried a restart, no luck. I think I'm glimpsing deep problems. :(
Anonymous
April 29, 2011
Thanks so far. Ran CheckSUR, but log shows no errors.
Anonymous
May 03, 2011
I'm running windows 2008 R2 SP1 and the only software installed is WSUS and its prerequisites. The winsxs folder is over 10GB in size and has consumed the remainder of the C: causing WSUS to fail. i find it very odd that Microsoft would create a folder that can grow to such a large extent yet not build in a way to keep it under control, or to clean out items no longer needed. The only folders contained in there are amd64_, wow64_ and x86 folders. Is WSUS using this as a staging area? Can I safely clean these out? As this is a production server all of the WSUS updates are being downloaded and stored on the D: but with the C: filling up due to this folder that really makes no difference. Is there something you can recommend to be done or do I actually need to take this to our Microsoft Account Rep to get something done about this?
Anonymous
June 12, 2011
Back again... I just hit 10GB on a win7 system that was installed late last year. I only size my c drive to around 40GB so this is, again, becoming a problem. Since it has been about 8 months since I asked before, is there any automated tooling to clean up these files? A monitor that tracks usage and cleans up or maybe something that scans the system for references to these files?
Anonymous
June 18, 2011
joscon, OK. Thanks. I can't install SP1 because after I installed Win7, I needed partitions for other systems and, not knowing it would be required for service pack installation, I deleted the system maint partition, so SP1 won't install. I've been considering re-installing from scratch on a new drive but re-installing all my, dev environments, progs, drivers etc is just too daunting a proposition, so I guess I'll be stuck w/o service packs for the life of win7 (or until I get desperate enough). Thanks though for the update.
Anonymous
July 31, 2011
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 01, 2011
There is nothing... NOTHING... On this drive other than a clean and up to date install of Windows 7. I just redid it Saturday. I've even turned off System Restore and the paging file. The thing is, when I first install Windows 7 and turn off the paging file, I have about 6GB free. Then I run Windows Update...
Anonymous
August 01, 2011
4GB of RAM And I disable the page file altogether, as noted in the previous post. And yes, that is about the size of my Windows 7 install with the page file turned off (6GB). Then, running Windows Update and installing updates basically doubles the install. It's not a huge deal. I was just doing some looking because I installed Windows and saw that I had like 6GB free on my drive. Then I ran Windows update and now I'm down to like 700MB. So I went searching for what just ballooned on my hard drive. My Windows folder is 12GB. WinSxS is 7GB of that. I didn't know what it was so I went off searching for an answer.
Anonymous
August 01, 2011
@Leho - Cablecard I mean, let's even forget that I only have a 16GB SSD. Just throw it out the window. Why does this one folder consume half the space of a Windows 7 install? I used to have this 16GB SSD installed in my MBP. Snow Leopard only took up 8GB. Plenty of room left for applications and settings. I kept my home folder on a 500GB secondary drive, of course.
Anonymous
August 01, 2011
SP1 is not installed.
Anonymous
August 01, 2011
@Andre I can understand that but the problem is that Windows Explorer doesn't. So even though I might technically have 6GB free on my drive (physically unused space on the chips), Windows Explorer thinks that the files are in there twice, so it doesn't know that space is unused even if, in reality, it isn't? Right? I don't really have any incentive to run any extra software to clear off space. As explained, of my drive's formatted 14.2GB capacity, 12GB of it is in the Windows directory. I've been through it and none of the other folders are significantly larger, they're just kind of scattered and it adds up. don't have any temporary files or anything to clear out. I don't have any programs installed outside of what I need installed for HTPC use (Silicon Dust HDHR Drivers, CoreAVC, AC3Filter, SABNZBd, Sickbeard, ATi display drivers).
Anonymous
December 26, 2011
I had "explorer reported size" of 10GB in C:WindowsWinSxs folder after Win7 SP1. After removing SP1 backup files (using cleanmgr), it came down to 6.5GB. Also using cleanmgr we can only clean temp files of current user. So I also ran "psexec -sid cleanmgr" to clean up temp files of "system" account. I had cleaned 1.5 GB of space. Hope it helps anyone who want to save some few gigs of space when they need.
Anonymous
January 11, 2012
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 17, 2012
Run Command Prompt AS Administrator Type: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded Press Enter And Enjoy :D
Anonymous
April 03, 2012
mines is 16.6 GB , 82000 files???
Anonymous
April 20, 2012
I hope this post is still being monitored. I've read all the back & forth about winsxs size and reference files and hardlinks and all the rest. I don't know if my winsxs is ACTUALLY 8 GB or 8 MB and it doesn't really matter to me, Explorer reports it as 8 GB and that's good enough for me. But the reason I'm here is my machine is starting to act up, the pointer hangs and lags and is very jerky as if there is some process in the background chewing through the CPU cycles like mad. So I start looking and my SDD C: partition has 5% free space and the biggest user of diskspace is winsxs. So my question is how do I move that rarely used directory to the D: partition of the SDD where there is a lot of room? That's all I want is to reclaim the space without having to rebuild the machine.
Anonymous
May 11, 2012
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
May 11, 2012
I forgot to add, my winsxs file is just under 8GB. As a backup file, this is overkill.
Anonymous
June 18, 2012
Hello joscon, On my work laptop I am running Windows 7 with no service pack installed at the moment. My hard drive is partitioned twice and all my personal/work files are stored on the D drive leaving the C drive to deal with program installations and Windows. The C Drive is 49.9GB in size and currently has 693MB remaining. When I check the file properties within the C Drive, the Windows folder is hogging approximately 30.5GB. On further inspection of the Windows folder I can see that the winsxs folder is hogging 15.3GB (189,972 files). If I can't delete the data in the winsxs folder what can I delete in the Windows folder because I obviously have an issue with storage at the moment and I cannot install additional programs on the C: Drive? I am not very technically advanced in relation to the Windows system files so please keep your reply in "layman terms". ;-) Thanks, David
Anonymous
June 20, 2012
Joseph, Thanks for the reply. Using winver it tells me I have Windows 7 Enterprise V6.1 (Build 7600) To determine the size of the Windows folder and the winsxs folder I find the folders on the C Drive, right click, select properties and wait for the "size on disk" to be calculated. Thanks, David
Anonymous
June 21, 2012
Joseph, I have been looking for a solution to the same old question. Cleanup of C drive (winsxs folder). I am using Win2k8 R2 Sp1 Std version. Couple of questions.

I could not find COMPCLN. Can you please let me know the path of the same.
Can I compress winsxs folder? If I do that, will it effect any of the hardlinks?
I would like to do this on a ESX template. Will it effect anything on the VM's deployed from this template? Thank You, Kalyan.

Anonymous
September 05, 2012
Hi All, I used this article and it helped clean a few gigs. answers.microsoft.com/.../3d83a43c-0af1-448f-8bda-8150ff201d2e Hope this will help Jacob Ouaknine M6iT Consulting | www.m6itc.com
Anonymous
October 11, 2012
My post in response to the blog posting at: blogs.technet.com/.../should-you-delete-files-in-the-winsxs-directory-and-what-s-the-deal-with-vss.aspx This has been a very interesting article read for me. Not only the article itself but the comments that go along with it. The insistence of users to know more which has led to even more detailed blog postings is amazing. Power to the people! :) I think, after much reading, I have a solid understanding of what a hardlink is. So this leads me to a question about how SFC /SCANNOW works. It's been said in the comments of this discussion that SFC /SCANNOW compares checksums on both files to see if they are the same. But there is something troubling about the wording of this statement. A checksum comparison implies a byte-for-byte comparison of two different files. A hard link is simply a private representative, so to speak, of the exact same file, in two different places. I can see the rationale for computing a checksum on the so called parent files in the /windows/winsxs directory to verify that this is the file that should exists in the standard /windows directory. But once you have confirmed a valid checksum exists on whatever file it is that you happen to be checking in the /windows/winsxs directory, it would seem redundant to compute a checksum on the same file in the /windows directory because if it's the same file as the original file in the /windows/winsxs file all you would really need to do is check the SequenceNumber of each file that you are comparing. If the filename sequence numbers are the same for each file then the hardlinks are pointing to the same file. If they are different then they are not pointing to the exact same file. No need to compute a checksum for each file. Of course, its very possible that someone has copied the exact same filename into the /windows directory and broken the hardlink. In this case the filename SequenceNumbers would be different which wouldn't necessarily mean that your file is corrupt. It would simply mean that both filenames point to a unique copy of the same file versus the single original file. In the event that someone has copied an exact duplicate of the parent file in the /windows/winsxs directory to the /windows directory, the SFC could simply delete the file to save space, and re-establish a hardlink in the /windows directory once again. To summarize my entire post, since it has been somewhat long winded I would say this. 1.Computing a checksum should only need to be executed once on the original/master file in the /windows/winsxs folder and never on the file in the /windows directory. If the filename SequenceNumbers for both filenames do not match. You know then, that they are different. Simply delete the filename in the /windows directory and re-establish the hardlink. All this writing to ask one question. Does SFC /SCANNOW compute 2 checkums or only 1 for each file that it checks?
Anonymous
November 05, 2012
Dear Joseph, I have been reading the comments for more than 15 minutes, but I really don't understand most of it. So I apologize if this question has already been answered - May I delete the duplicate folders? Those created the same day, at the same time, with the same content... my winsxs is 18GB. Thanks!
Anonymous
November 17, 2012
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
November 21, 2012
I had already used COMPCLN and size is still 22 gb. In previous comments you have been curious as to what possibly could take such amount of space so how do I find out what sort of things take the most space?
Anonymous
December 01, 2012
The problem is not only winsxs, I have a 128GB SSD drive, after formating only 114GB based on explorer but on this 114GB I use :

winsxs : 9.1 GB (real not with the fake hardlink count and SP1 file already removed)
Installer: 5.9GB
MSOCache: 3.4GB Total : 18.4GB I cannot touch, shrink or modify or it can break my Windows 7... It seems there is no solution to fix the problem, and Microsoft doesn't consider that to be a problem....

Anonymous
December 01, 2012
WinDirStat
Anonymous
December 01, 2012
As a test, I uninstalled all softwares I didn't need (around 5 or 6), including the full Adobe photoshop suite. The folder winsxs didnt move at all, not a single file removed. Neither the installer folder. Regards
Anonymous
December 01, 2012
I saw some advice you can uninstall path/update and that will reduce the size as far you keep the last rollup patch. Does that apply also to Office patch ?
Anonymous
January 13, 2013
If a disk error or deliberate exploit can corrupt a system file, it's just as possible to corrupt the backup or the 10 old versions stored on the disc. Backups should not be stored on the same computer. If a file gets messed up, a confirmed good file should be downloaded from Microsoft. The idea of keeping MULTIPLE old versions just in case someone wants to go back 6 versions?? That's very rare with higher level code, libraries and executables. It was important 40 years ago when raw machine code pushed popped and moved hex numbers into absolute memory locations. If you changed anything, you likely broke it for anyone else using that module. But Microsoft doesn't care, their MVPs for YEARS just say "get a bigger hard drive" when the old one is perfectly adequate if not for useless files that Microsoft installs and makes harder and harder to remove. I have a laptop with Windows 7 and it has several GB of Asian fonts, Korean gramma checkers, Japanese tablet handwriting recognition. AND SXS Updates..(and I have no touch pad hardware!) It apparently came with the 30 day trial version of Office 2007. Microsoft update adds a NON REMOVABLE update to the Asian character support, and when you uninstall the Office trial, the Asian stuff stays -- there is no uninstaller in add/remove programs, and trying to delete the fonts through control panel gives TWO nag screens that ask "are you sure" "are you really really sure" yes yes then a message they are protected system fonts and cannot be removed,.
Anonymous
January 17, 2013
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 02, 2013
There is a command that we can run to make it smaller. www.productiveorganizer.com/.../how-to-clean-up-winsxs-directory-that-is-growing-too-big however, it does shrink mine down 2.7 GB but i expected more. One of the reasons windows can be a frustrating installation is due to this.
Anonymous
February 22, 2013
I began reading this article hoping to identify some additional drive space to complete the ghosting of a 300GB hard drive. After reading through this article I can safely say that many of you need to reach in to your penny jars and purchase some new hard drives. Many or you would live a much happier existence. A 300GB drive is arround 60 dollars. Windows 7 should have spit the disk back out at 140GB.
Anonymous
May 03, 2013
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
May 05, 2013
I have been drawn into this winsxs discussion following my last month's discovery that my Win-7 partition was 21Gb at that time on my SSD partition. I had originally created a 30Gb partition for it thinking it would be plenty. But now that I discovered that out of that 21Gb I have a 9Gb winsxs folder to which Microsoft is saying it is very important but is not coming up with a solution that would take in account that no HD change or HD space increase in looked at. I installed Win-7 12 months ago and rarely installs softwares on it. I mainly use my Win-7's boot for games and building 3d stuffs. I have read about half of the threads in here and got fed up. So I went straight to the end but only to find out that after 3 years the situation has not changed. We are still stuck with this problem and even if some glimps of solutions were found here and there, they are still considered not safe but with the exceptions of DISM and TAKEOWN which Microsoft has recommended. I have not tried TAKEOWN but will in a few minutes. I have 250Mb of files in that Manifests folder. Even if this works out it is still not enough. However when I tried the DISM way, I got a message (don't recall exactly) saying something like it could not find or locate the SP1 files ? I have not figured it out yet but then I did not concentrate my free time on this. One thing I found interesting in this thread. If that winsxs folder is to act as a somewhat of a backup folder and we may find multiple versions of the same patch, then why isn't someone (ex: Microsoft) coming up with a software or KB to remove all those previous versions ? Why keep 20 different versions of the same software if only the last one is used (unless someone does a restore and then the N-1 or N-x version will be the one used). Can someone do a summary of all the mentioned solutions and say which ones are safe, which ones save significant HD space, .... This is just to avoid anyone having to painfully go through all these threads. We need a summary !!!
Anonymous
May 10, 2013
I tried the DISM and TAKEOWN methodes and both did not work :

DISM with administrative rights C:Windowswinsxs>dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /spsuperseded Outil Gestion et maintenance des images de déploiement Version : 6.1.7600.16385 Version de l’image : 6.1.7600.16385 Le nettoyage du Service Pack ne peut pas se poursuivre : les fichiers de sauvegarde du Service Pack sont introuvable L’opération a réussi. This roughly translates to it could not do it because it could not find the Service Pack backups.
The TAKEOWN method, I successfully stopped the process and did the takeown. But when it was time to delete the folder's content (juste on 250Mb file), it told me access refused. What do I do now ?

Anonymous
June 01, 2013
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 07, 2013
How about simply converting that folder into a compressed folder ? At least there would be some space saving in doing that.
Anonymous
June 13, 2013
I work at a computer repair shop and have a Vista machine that just showed up for servicing. It has its original 160 GB HDD and Vista, without SP1. I cannot install SP1, as the hard drive is entirely full, with only 2.6 GB free. The user's data on the machine consists entirely of 2 JPEGs. Winsxs is taking up 128 GB of space, a full 80% of the drive. I'm being led to believe that the only solution for this issue is a complete format & reinstallation? Windows never ceases to amaze me with how utterly awful it is at being an OS.
Anonymous
June 13, 2013
Not sure if my last post got eaten due to the imgur link I stuck in it, but I actually pulled the drive to hook it up to a linux machine to analyze the drive with Baobob. Here's the breakdown: http://imgur.com/8yas3hl
Anonymous
June 13, 2013
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 02, 2013
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 16, 2013
I am fighting with my security folks who use NESSUS to scan our network. NESSUS is reporting that the VC90 versions are out of date in the WINSXS folder. Does this translate to the actual files being out of date. Are these files vulnerable? Specifically the software is reporting MS11-025 as missing. (Thanks for keeping this comment section alive for so long, it has helped.)
Anonymous
August 16, 2013
WSUS/SCCM report the machine as being compliant with MS11-025 installed (sometimes multiple installations due to multiple versions of C++ Redistrib). But NESSUS is showing the following with file versions. SMB/FileVersions/windows/winsxs/amd64_microsoft.vc90.mfc_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_none_04480933ab2137b1/mfc90.dll=9.0.30729.4148 SMB/FileVersions/windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft.vc90.mfc_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_none_4bf5400abf9d60b7/mfc90.dll=9.0.30729.4148
Anonymous
August 16, 2013
It may have cut off my file versions which are both 9.0.30729.4148

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Should you delete files in the WinSXS directory? And what’s the deal with VSS?

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