WinSxs Folder consuming enormous disk space

Anonymous
2008-12-24T21:21:38+00:00

My WinSxs folder under Windows directory is consuming 10GB of disk space. We all know that Windows root folder is the system root directory. What is WinSxs? Is there any work around to clear up the free space from this folder? If it keeps building up with this rate, I can see my primary partition being being full very soon. Is there anything that I can do to get back this disk space?

hrishi

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2008-12-25T03:50:29+00:00

Hi Hrishz,

I’ve attached a link below that explains the purpose of the WinSxs folder:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374224.aspx

You can use the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Files Removal Tool which has resulted in some people having more free space in the WinSxs folder. The downside is that after doing this you will be unable to uninstall SP1, you should have SP1 installed anyways so if this isn’t a problem proceed with the steps listed below:

1.       Click Start

2.       In the “Start Search” box type VSP1CLN.exe and then press Enter

3.       In the command prompt that opens type “Y” for yes to perform the clean up

Here is a article about this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709655.aspx

You can also take a look at another post about this same issue in the forums, link below:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaperformance/thread/e473cda6-94d5-4e6a-9ce8-97cf876174a0

Hope this helps. : )

If you have any further questions don’t hesitate to ask.

Brian

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-12-30T20:49:31+00:00

    Mine is...WINSXS is HUGE. My VIPRE AV is doing a deep scan and has been scanning this folder for the past hour and has a ways to go. Did M$ carry this over to Win8 too. I am moving some of my computers back to XP.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-12-30T22:19:54+00:00

    Files in C:\windows\system32 and in C:\windows\WinSxS are hardlinked.

    A hardlink is a file name. All files have at least 1 hardlink. Files can have more than one hardlink. They'll appear as two or more files but are only one file.

    So an approx way to measure the size of WinSxS is

    Size of WinSxs Folder Tree - (Size of System32 Folder + Size of System32\En-US Folder)

    Also you'd have to deduct most of the fonts folder.

    The size that is left is

    • Not installed Features
    • The original and updates to system files so you can roll back updates.
    • Different versions of library files so programs can use the correct version.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-01-01T11:39:09+00:00

    Size of WinSxs - (Size of System32 + Size of System32\En-US)

    Do you really mean "+Size of System32**En-US"**? Because it is already included in "Size of System32"!

    Why not delete the whole of WinSxs to free up space, if the residue is uninstalled or solely for roll-back (like the $Uninstall$KB.. folders of XP which can removed once you are confident of the updates)? Any doubly hard-linked files in System32 will not be removed; only files where the last hard-link has gone will be deleted.

    Has anyone tried this on a PC where they are prepared to reinstall the OS?

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-01-01T11:55:38+00:00

    I meant the system32 folder only not the tree.

    If you delete the whole WinSxS folder some modern programs will stop working.

    The Windows Common Controls Ver 6 are ONLY in WinSxS. The ones in System32 are Ver 5. Common Controls are things like toolbars which weren't part of the standard controls. I'm not sure if they'll stop working or appear as an old looking program.

    Old programs work using ver 5.

    New programs uses a mechanism where programs can specify versions of files they want. The files are in WinSxS.

    Visual C runtime are also versioned in WinSxS. So those programs written in VC will stop working.

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