Hi... I know this article (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/174f3f40-41fd-47f1-8fd8-3f11a642c96c ) was marked as resolved...but it's truly not!!! Can someone please provide some much needed answers or solution on what MICROSOFT plans on doing to resolve this issue. thanks... SJ

Hi ... I can't find Cmpcln.exe under "\%windir%\system32\" on all Server running Windows Server 2008 standard service pack 2. please help me. thank you very much. panumat

Yeah... he mistyped that...it's actually COMPCLN.exe... I ran into the same issue... but it doesn't really free up that much space... it's really a ridiculous solution... and Microsoft ought to be ashamed of themselves for this yet another 'cluster'... Their requirements for installation of W2K8 needs to be changed... SJ

Hi Karen, Our evidence shows that the space reported in the WinSXS directory is ACTUAL space being used, not phantom reported space. Evidence comes from looking at the size of a Server 2008 VM on a dynamically expanding VHD and the size of the VHD matching the size reported by Windows Explorer. So, unless someone can explain otherwise, that tells us that the size of data reported by Windows Explorer is accurate. Thanks, Steve

I know that digging up old posts is not the way to go BUT I cannot believe this issue is still unsolved! We are running into the same problem here. Winsxs Folder consumes 13GB of space already. ManifestCache folder contains one ..blogs.bin file (630MB). Did anybody solve this in the last 6 months?

Along with everyone else that made the mistake of installing and configuring Server 2008 based on MS recommendations I too have undersized the c partition. From reading other posts I don't know how you would ever figure out how much acerage the forever growing winsxs folder will need. I noticed in an earlier comment that as a result of deleting their blog.bin in the manifestcache folder the winsxs had went from 40GB to 10GB. My system has two blog.bin files, 6.0.6001.18000_001c50b5_blobs.bin and 6.0.6002.18005_001c11ba_blobs.bin. My question is; is it really OK to delete the blog.bin files and does it really make a difference? Has anyone else tried this with any success?

I have the same problem too. The problem is that I trusted microsoft, and even payed. So there is no solution. Just they don't care. (as I see you did NOT an update fixing this). I'm going to put 10 gb of waste on my new ssd. The system is 2 weeks old. Can't imagine wath happens after a year. Yes I'm a power user. Might use ssd for others but not for unthrustable microsoft programs.

Just to make sure there's at least one complaint per month for MSFT to ignore: I'm dual booting XP and 7 on a laptop with a 92 gig hard drive (100 gig in doubleplusgood ad speak). 7 has been installed for a year and a half, on a 44 gig partition, with very little use. WinSxS takes up 4.4 gigs of a 10.1 gig !!! windows folder. This is unsustainable. If I start using the thing ("Blob Eats Disk Space"--new horror movie) I'm gonna run out of partition in a big hurry. My points - "hard links" or squishy links or real files: it doesn't matter. If windows is perceiving the space as used, I cannot effing use it for something else. The manifest cache is using only 67 megabytes our of the 4.4 gigs, nothing, relatively speaking. I assume from other posts that it will grow wildly with more usage, more frequent updates. But deleting the damn thing every time I turn around is NOT A SOLUTION. You know, I was excited when Win7 delivered a much smaller install than did Vista. You might say that was a way, way premature excitation. HOW ABOUT A SOLUTION!

Hi all I'm not able to offer anything helpful here, but am suffering the same problem.... 17.8GB file blob.bin in C:\Windows\winsxs\ManifestCache. I can't delete it and am not sure from my research whether I should. I actually bought an external HD to give me more space. The constant memory low warnings are really grating, espeicially as I've cleaned, defragged, deleted, sorted only to find the file using he space is due to a MS "system" file beyond my control. IMO they should sort this. An efficient OS should not include disc eaters that 90% of users will not be able to sort out out without recourse to hours of research. This 90% incudes me! Agree with above post - SOLUTION NEEDED MS. Thanks

Hi! I´m trying to reduce the "winsxs" folder space but the methods that you say is not working for my windows server 2008 SP1. When I try to execute Vsp1cln.exe tool to clean up the space, I get the error message that the command it isn´t recognizes as an internal or external command executable. And I look for the file that should be located under \%windir%\system32\, but is not there. Can you help me with this problem? Thanks in advance. Jessi

Disks are cheaper than ever, if the folder is that much concern, get a bigger disk My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010 Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

First time post here. I'm seeing the same issue here. Of 11GB total being used on the system drive, the WINSXS folder is reporting 8GB. The only thing installed on this server is Windows 2008 R2, SP 1, and any Microsoft security patches recomended. All this "undo" and "rollback" functionality is GREAT, but why does Microsoft force you to store it on the system drive? Shouldn't system admins and other profesionals get some say as to how much protection we want/need? At some point shouldn't we rely on our backups, or in a virtual invironment, snapshots, to rollback changes? In the latest release of Windows server, we are alowed to install in a console mode and have no GUI at all. There are a bunch of reasons you might want to do this, but isn't one of them to reduce your overhead and OS footprint? It would seem to me that this is a step in the wrong direction. I have seen the answer, "Disks are cheap, buy a bigger disk" before, that is a much too simplistic aproach for enterprise level systems. More and more, companies are turning to virtual servers as a regular way of rolling out new services. Microsoft themselves have a virtualizing solution. How is it that this excessive use of space is not only "OK" but it is mandatory? I run a VM farm with nearly 100 Windows 2003 servers and we are looking at migrating to Win 2008 R2. What happens when you multiply 100 servers by what ever size that the WINSXS becomes, then multiply that number by your regular backup schedule and soon you get a number that is so large it is no longer possible to move foward. All above questions are rhetorical, I'll be opening a new ticket with Microsoft shortly. Thanks for your time. Smiley

One suggestion to reduce the Window disk footprint is the disk cleanup tool. Look for it in the Accessories then System Tools If you clean up all of the restore points you can recover a vast amount of storage. My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010 Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Of course I can also suggest a bigger HD My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010 Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

First post in here and I am posting because it's really driving me crazy to hear such things from (allegedly) MVP s of the company @ Vegan Fanatic "Disks are cheaper than ever, if the folder is that much concern, get a bigger disk" "Of course I can also suggest a bigger HD" I could start with a lot of suggestions too.. But I will start with the obvious answer : I DON'T WANT to buy a new hdd.. The hdd I have is more than adequate for my needs..Or would be, without the winsxs situation.. If you want to contribute to something except adding to the number of posts you have,stop telling people what the winsxs folder is for, or the reason tha it grows out of proportion and concentrate on actually DOING SOMETHING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM, which by the way, microsoft knew that existed as of windows Vista. (and that goes for the other five-gold-medals-under-my-name mvp s in here)

I just took a look at my folder at its only 9.86 GB at the moment. Mind you I just installed Windows clean on a new disk. My old disk died so I had to replace it. Old disk was 500 GB, now I have 750 GB for what its worth. The winsxs folder is a system folder so it should not be tampered with. Can you post a complete list of all of the installed programs? My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. Visit my IT site for information. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

some of you guys are of pathetic help, why bother posting? disc cleanup? Are you serious? Did you seriously think we did not already try that? Move the folder? These folders are still required to be part of the system, moving it does not get rid of the fact its still part of the system; it wont work without it! Buy another hard drive? You seriously think that fixes the problem? Do you think causing downtime to replace an HDD because of unexplainable HDD growth is acceptable? Just because HDDs are cheaper, did you guys ever consider that the time to perform the backup/recovery (and not just limited to this) will require multiple times the amount of time it originally cost? Not even going to mention testing/verifying those backups... all due to unexplainable hard drive file growth. At minimum microsoft needs to release current documentation other than conflicting statements from their engineers (hard links? seriously...?) Rather than giving bandaids to what has/is a serious problem, why help in ignoring it? I just installed S2k8 R2 w/ absolutely no service packs or updates and the winsxs folder sits at 6gb. Regardless of whether or not its hardlinks/softlinks/junk, it eats up HDD space that prevents me from doing many things and does a hella lot more than just making things take longer and add costs/time. Not even repeating the lies of the microsoft s2k8 requirements (already posted above), and so much for the idea of trying to keep my backups to fit on a single disc, even a dual layer DVD is not big enough for this bare install. ps, none of the executables mentioned above exist on Server 2008 R2 and/or SP1.

Just adding my voice to crowd of frustrated users. We run a highly virtualized environment (Hyper-V) that was sized-out based on MS recommendations, with healthy padding for future growth. From what I understand of it, the idea behind winsxs is protecting users from themselves, when they install crappy apps or delete files. This may work fine for home users, but rolling this into the Server OS doesn't make any sense. Server admin that relies on stuff being hard linked in the winsxs folder to save his butt, instead of actually controlling his system or backing it up doesn't deserve to be an admin. So, now I'm stuck with a windows install that is twice the size it should be. Repeating some of what others have said: I don't care that you tell me the space isn't really used. If I can't put something else in that space, then the space is being used. "Buy a bigger HDD" is cop-out answer. In a hyper-v enterprise with hundreds of VM's, 10GB per VM is not trivial. Planning deployments based on MS sizing recommendations is pretty much worthless because of this. Supposing I do find a way to allocate more HDD space, how am I supposed to re-size the OS partitions on hundreds of production servers?

On my wokstation where I have several VMs I recently installed a larger HD so that I could install more software on a couple of them. I keep the VMs on a secondary hard disk and with the larger disk its not a big problem anymore. If your /windows folder is becoming that big I would like to see the software stack in use. I am working on a tool to create a list automaticlly, should be done soon. Windows MVP, paid Remote Assistance is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Buy bigger disks? Are you kidding me? As other people in this thread have said, what a cop out that is. That is a seriously terrible solution. What about people who use EMC/Netapp or other enterprise storage solutions? These disks are HUNDREDS of dollars each, and the necessary hardware can be TENS OF THOUSANDS! This problem is a HUGE knock against MS in the arena of virtualization. I have created a Win 7 virtual machines with a purposefully tiny disk, installed updates, did the sp1 cleanup tool, kept it all under 12gb. Then and only then have I increased the hard disk space. IMMEDIATELY a huge chunk gets gobbled up by this winsxs mechanism. This is turning me red with anger and has me completely at a loss. I'm speechless how this can be overlooked and as far as I can tell, treated as a non-problem by you and MS in general. If I am deploying dozens of virtual machines using expensive storage, hundreds of GB of essentially wasted space is an enormous problem. I can't stress this enough. I do not care if they are hard links, the fact is that the OS counts them towards the total and it is effectively off-limits. If the count is done this way, I CAN'T INSTALL OR COPY THINGS, bottom line. Huge waste of resources. Please, please, please tell me how I'm mistaken here...

I just looked at my server's disk and the folder there is a little over 6 GB. I am using Server 2008 R2 though, but that should not be much different. I have finished my IT tool to dump the installed program stack. Visit my IT site and use the program and paste the output here in a reply. Windows MVP, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint etc. My page on Video Card Problems is now my most popular landing page. My Page on SSD is now #2. See my gaming site for game reviews etc. Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

I cannot believe that this has not been addressed yet. I currently have 2 laptops running Windows 7, 2 desktops running Windows 7, and a desktop running Windows Server 2008. The winsxs folder is growing out of control on all 5 machines. Currently on one of the Win7 laptops the folder is a little over 24gigs, contains 303,597 files, and 92,800 folders. The other 4 have similar properties. Oh, and being told to buy more disk space is rather insulting...

Hello, Should not be seeing that many files and folders, can you capture the output from the tool below and make it available Try using the Disk Usage tool from the sysinternals site? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046.aspx Dropped into a \tools folder then run it twice: C:\Tools>du /v /u c:\ >Files_Unique.txt This should give you a better picture of what is taking up the disk space Thanks, Darrell Gorter [MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. VAMT - Volume Activation Management Tool - Download link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec7156d2-2864-49ee-bfcb-777b898ad582&displaylang=en

Hello Sam, there are various things that take up space. thus the request for the output from the disk usage tool to determine where the space is being consumed. nobody is stating the WinSXS does take up some space, most of the time the methods for viewing the space by that folder are not taking into account hard links which means the value for that folder appears larger than the space it really occupies. A file that has multiple hard links only consumes the space on the disk once, winsxs has a lot of files that are hard linked to their Window folder location so most tools over report it's usage. It's best to look at the disk from the whole to try to determine what is occupying the space Try using the Disk Usage tool from the sysinternals site? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046.aspx Dropped into a \tools folder then run it: C:\Tools>du /v /u c:\ >Files_Unique.txtThanks, Darrell Gorter [MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. VAMT - Volume Activation Management Tool - Download link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec7156d2-2864-49ee-bfcb-777b898ad582&displaylang=en

I have used this tool and Folder Size to examine the loss of space on the C drive (running Windows 2008 SP2 server) My C drive is 65GB and it has only 1.94 GB available. I only have 6 GB of applications installed. All the data is on the E drive. The space continues to shrink. WINSXS is occupying at least 25GB. This cannot be right. Solution Please?

click in start->all programs->accessories->system tools->disk cleanup this tool will get rid of lots of crud Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Can you try the Disk Usage tool from the sysinternals site? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046.aspx drop into a \tools folder C:\Tools>du /v /u c:\Windows >Win_Folders.txt Make this available so we can look at what is consuming spaceThanks, Darrell Gorter [MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. VAMT - Volume Activation Management Tool - Download link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec7156d2-2864-49ee-bfcb-777b898ad582&displaylang=en

There was apost above that says to post whats installed using the providd tool (which was not as easy to find as I hoped) here it is... Box has been up for almost 6 years. I have run COMPCLN.EXE got back about 1/4 gig. I cannot delete the blob file which is huge, but after I stopped WMI, and deleted the "\System32\Wbem\Repository" folder, then started WMI again, it appears to be a 0 byte file. C:\Windows>dir *blobs*.* /s Directory of C:\Windows\winsxs\ManifestCache 12/10/2011 11:39 AM 0 6.0.6002.18005_001c11ba_blobs.bin 1 File(s) 0 bytes 0 Dir(s) 18,118,217,728 bytes free C:\Windows>dir winsxs\*.* /s Total Files Listed: 51689 File(s) 12,009,080,164 bytes 35828 Dir(s) 18,227,187,712 bytes free Appwiz © 2010-11 Ian E. Green, All Rights Reserved Free for personal use only. 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System Model: Vostro 1400 System Type: X86-based PC Processor(s): 1 Processor(s) Installed. [01]: x64 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13 GenuineIntel ~1596 Mhz BIOS Version: Dell Inc. A01, 7/10/2007 Windows Directory: C:\Windows System Directory: C:\Windows\system32 Boot Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume3 System Locale: en-us;English (United States) Input Locale: en-us;English (United States) Time Zone: (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) Total Physical Memory: 2,037 MB Available Physical Memory: 439 MB Page File: Max Size: 4,477 MB Page File: Available: 3,219 MB Page File: In Use: 1,258 MB Page File Location(s): C:\pagefile.sys Domain: WORKGROUP Hotfix(s): 367 Hotfix(s) Installed. [01]: {8588DD11-6BD7-4400-B55C-DD5AB74B43E1} [02]: {90486BA0-B80C-40C7-B8A5-29B412338B88} [03]: {01D4CA59-7070-4420-9BCC-0EFA7C5D76BE} [04]: {0B4CEEAE-AA88-490C-BCB2-AAC3421981A4} [05]: {3D019598-7B59-447A-80AE-815B703B84FF} [06]: {643C12A2-AF9A-4712-B8BE-3B7650AFE00A} [07]: {BF3F1CBD-B05C-4644-AE43-6EE0FCC227A4} [08]: {D75E6D0C-BADF-4F41-98B2-0C0F02C15062} [09]: {E8D49642-3C9B-409B-824D-3371E86AEA20} [10]: {A8686D24-1E89-43A1-973E-05A258D2B3F8} [11]: {AC76BA86-7AD7-0000-2550-7A8C40000945} - [12]: {F6F493A7-59FA-4C3A-8357-2934D3EE6EC9} [13]: {BEBED0E2-B204-388A-A53B-30DA66FA8ACC} [14]: {25CD1DBE-0D2D-3E78-9FDC-794CC40B94AA} - Caution. Removing this product might prevent some applications from running. [15]: {8456C24E-816B-4D8E-9E89-FA77322ABBA3} [16]: {E3250773-09A0-49CD-B94E-7780FD51EB07} [17]: {F9852BE7-7A55-413C-BBD0-C9B72790E983} [18]: {012BE245-FE02-466B-9835-209FE4FB7698} [19]: KB937286 [20]: KB971513 [21]: KB971512 [22]: KB2117917 [23]: 944036 [24]: 982861 [25]: 928439 [26]: KB960362 [27]: KB971514 [28]: KB925902 [29]: KB928135 [30]: KB928190 [31]: KB928253 [32]: KB929399 [33]: KB929577 [34]: KB929685 [35]: KB929735 [36]: KB929761 [37]: KB929762 [38]: KB929763 [39]: KB929777 [40]: KB929909 [41]: KB929913 [42]: KB930163 [43]: KB930178 [44]: KB930495 [45]: KB930568 [46]: KB930857 [47]: KB931099 [48]: KB931174 [49]: KB931573 [50]: KB931621 [51]: KB932094 [52]: KB932309 [53]: KB932471 [54]: KB933242 [55]: KB933579 [56]: KB933729 [57]: KB933860 [58]: KB934237 [59]: KB934612 [60]: KB936003 [61]: KB936021 [62]: KB936141 [63]: KB936357 [64]: KB936782 [65]: KB936825 [66]: KB937077 [67]: KB938127 [68]: KB939159 [69]: KB941202 [70]: KB941568 [71]: KB941569 [72]: KB941644 [73]: KB943055 [74]: KB943078 [75]: KB945145 [76]: KB945553 [77]: KB946026 [78]: KB946456 [79]: KB949939 [80]: KB2079403 [81]: KB2117917 [82]: KB2141007 [83]: KB2158563 [84]: KB2160329 [85]: KB2183461 [86]: KB2207566 [87]: KB2281679 [88]: KB2286198 [89]: KB2296011 [90]: KB2296199 [91]: KB2305420 [92]: KB2345886 [93]: KB2347290 [94]: KB2360131 [95]: KB2362765 [96]: KB2378111 [97]: KB2387149 [98]: KB2388210 [99]: KB2393802 [100]: KB2412687 [101]: KB2416400 [102]: KB2416470 [103]: KB2419640 [104]: KB2423089 [105]: KB2436673 [106]: KB2442962 [107]: KB2443685 [108]: KB2447568 [109]: KB2449742 [110]: KB2467659 [111]: KB2476490 [112]: KB2478660 [113]: KB2478935 [114]: KB2479628 [115]: KB2479943 [116]: KB2481109 [117]: KB2482017 [118]: KB2483185 [119]: KB2485376 [120]: KB2492386 [121]: KB2497640 [122]: KB2503658 [123]: KB2503665 [124]: KB2505189 [125]: KB2506212 [126]: KB2506223 [127]: KB2507618 [128]: KB2507938 [129]: KB2508272 [130]: KB2508429 [131]: KB2509553 [132]: KB2510531 [133]: KB2511455 [134]: KB2518866 [135]: KB2522422 [136]: KB2524375 [137]: KB2530548 [138]: KB2532531 [139]: KB2533623 [140]: KB2535512 [141]: KB2536275 [142]: KB2536276 [143]: KB2539633 [144]: KB2541763 [145]: KB2544893 [146]: KB2545698 [147]: KB2555917 [148]: KB2556532 [149]: KB2559049 [150]: KB2562937 [151]: KB2563227 [152]: KB2563894 [153]: KB2564958 [154]: KB2567053 [155]: KB2567680 [156]: KB2570791 [157]: KB2570947 [158]: KB2572075 [159]: KB2579686 [160]: KB2586448 [161]: KB2588516 [162]: KB2607712 [163]: KB2616676 [164]: KB2620704 [165]: KB2641690 [166]: KB905866 [167]: KB928089 [168]: KB929123 [169]: KB929916 [170]: KB931213 [171]: KB932246 [172]: KB933360 [173]: KB933566 [174]: KB933928 [175]: KB935280 [176]: KB935807 [177]: KB936824 [178]: KB937143 [179]: KB937287 [180]: KB938123 [181]: KB938194 [182]: KB938371 [183]: KB938464 [184]: KB938979 [185]: KB939653 [186]: KB941649 [187]: KB941651 [188]: KB941693 [189]: KB942288 [190]: KB942615 [191]: KB942624 [192]: KB942763 [193]: KB943302 [194]: KB943411 [195]: KB943899 [196]: KB944533 [197]: KB945435 [198]: KB946041 [199]: KB947562 [200]: KB947864 [201]: KB948531 [202]: KB948590 [203]: KB948609 [204]: KB948610 [205]: KB948881 [206]: KB950582 [207]: KB950759 [208]: KB950760 [209]: KB950762 [210]: KB950974 [211]: KB951066 [212]: KB951072 [213]: KB951376 [214]: KB951618 [215]: KB951698 [216]: KB951978 [217]: Network Card(s): 5 NIC(s) Installed. [01]: Broadcom NetLink (TM) Fast Ethernet Connection Name: Broadcom Wired DHCP Enabled: Yes DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1 IP address(es) [01]: 192.168.1.2 [02]: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Connection Name: Internal Wireless DHCP Enabled: Yes DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1 IP address(es) [01]: 192.168.1.4 [03]: SonicWALL Virtual NIC Connection Name: SonicWALL DHCP Enabled: Yes DHCP Server: N/A IP address(es) [04]: Gbridge Virtual Private Network Adapter Connection Name: Gbridge Status: Media disconnected [05]: ASUS 802.11n Network Adapter Connection Name: Asus Wireless DHCP Enabled: Yes DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1 IP address(es) [01]: 192.168.1.3 [02]: fe80::74ee:.....yanked

I see you are low on disk space, so I suggest either uninstall unused programs or get a bigger disk. Since I last was in this thread, I see my Appwiz tool has found use. Nothing too serious noted. My IT site has lots of papers on hard disks Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Disks are cheaper than ever, if the folder is that much concern, get a bigger disk My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010 Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews This reply is unhelpful to the point of arrogance. As an MVP you should be ashamed.

Disk prices have gone insane since I bought a 2 TB disk last fall. I am using that for general storage on my server It still does not make a lot of sense that /windows/winsxs should be so large as that is imply a cache of windows components for add/remove etc, I do not see how with your software stack how that could me. Try the disk cleanup tool found under accessories=>system tools Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Disks are cheaper than ever, if the folder is that much concern, get a bigger disk My MVP is for the Windows Desktop Experience, i.e. Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 IT Remote Assistance is available for a fee. I am best with C++ and I am learning C# using Visual Studio 2010 Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Hardcore Games | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews This is the answer that got me good. Get a bigger disk? Really? Lets see. We have raid 5 in each machine, about 10 clustered servers. Now exact same configuration for SQL Servers. Oh the daily backup for Web as well as SQL Server. Forget the cost, the time to implement, test and send to production takes 2-3 months if things move faster through senior management approval ... Yes you can get a bigger disk for your server at home but this is not the answer for enterprise solution. The disk cleanup is for cleaning temporary files here and there and would not work for winsxs issue. I cant believe Microsoft does not have answer for this issue. Poor coding? design flaw? I dont what it is but this needs to be fixed soon.

I stopped using Server 2008 when R2 surfaced. I have several VMs setup including 08 running one has SQL server on it for testing a standalone server for development purposes there other is for testing web applictions on i checked both vms and neither has an unduely large winsxs folder I wonder if something in your particular software stack is use undue system resources Windows MVP 2010-11, XP, Vista, 7. Expanding into Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cloud, Virtualization etc. etc. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

Thanks, Karen. These are all good suggestions, especially the 'blob' thing. But please keep in mind (and MS often forgets this) that a very large number of their users (read customers) have limited means to either extend hardware or purchase new hardware. We live in a very constrained world here. So, buying a new hard disk for example, is not the solution. Figuring out how to safely configure our systems, with the known effects, is the way most of us would prefer to go. So, your post was very helpful. Many thanks. -- Mark-Allen Tech London, UK

Hey there, did you get any reply back from microsoft? What did you do to resolve this WINSXS folder growing issue? Please do reply back. Thanks.

I agree with you 100%. These Microsoft guys gives the worst solutions. I called them for a urlscan.ini file blocking my SharePoint Designer and the guy at the Microsoft starts to "google" for an answer and tell me to remove the URLSCAN from IIS > IMAPI Filters completely instead of telling me how to fix the urlscan.ini file so that it will not block my SPD!!!!! What a waste of time and money on my side.

The file is not available on every system. NOT A CORRECT ANSWER !

all you MVP folks are kinf of assholes! Get a bigger disc? really? why dont you come into my office and explain to the partners that we need to totally rebuild all of our VMs because microsoft gave bad parameters for building them and they are all uner 1 GB of space on the c drives because of your stupid folder. Can the freaking folder be moved? We need a solution yesterday and get a biger disk or uninstall your production software is NOT a valid answer you dimwitted losers

hey dipshit, the godamn cleanup tool does nothing so stop posting that as a solution you peckerhead you have said that at least 6 times in this thread and each time some poor IT guy responds it DOES NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Can you use the Disk Usage Tool to collect some data from the system? I can take a look at the data. Download Disk usage from Sysinternals site. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896651 I dropped it into a tools folder. then run C:\Tools>du /v c:\Windows >%username%.txt C:\Tools>du /v /u c:\Windows >%username%_U.txt If you can please zip the files and make them available for download? Thanks, Darrell Gorter [MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. VAMT - Volume Activation Management Tool - Download link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec7156d2-2864-49ee-bfcb-777b898ad582&displaylang=en

My mother asked me to take a look at her two year old laptop as it is running very slow and I could see that the hard drive was nearly full. I asked her what files she had and she said that she hardly used the computer so I looked into the disk usage. The blogs.bon.file is taking up 40+GB and is making her computer pretty must unusable as the processing speeds are very slow. Has an answer been found to this issue yet? I tried to install your Download Disk usage tool but have been unable to get it to work. Many thanks for your help.

This topic is for Windows Server, please visit a more appropriate forum http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/threads Windows MVP 2011-12, XP, Vista, 7 and 8. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews

This is now in the windows server forum. Anyone have a solution for this for 2008 NON R2?? DISM, I have manually copied from an R2 server, but it does not allow /online So there is no solution to solve the run away /winsxs folder problem on 2008 non-R2 dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded /hidesp that should do it, but is an R2 only solution I fear

Your response matches what I am feeling. Thanks for letting it out. I'm going over to the server forum. S2008 SP1 running out of space to do anything other than backup, go down, expand volume and restore so I can put up SP2 (not enuf free space) and try the clean tool after I don't need it!MSRP

Hi, i met the same problem. The system is windows server 2008. And i tried to use compcln to reduce some space but failed. The verbose log shows lots components "not found, not removing"... And i also see the error code in the log. -------------------------------------Clip--------------------------------------- 00000cb6 (F) c01a001d [Error,Facility=FACILITY_COMMONLOG,Code=29 (0x001d)] #85871# from RemoveVersionedIndicesComponents=118 ("\REGISTRY\MACHINE\COMPONENTS\DerivedData") Tx=10c ("") 00000cb7@2012/11/18:20:31:33.992 (F) d:\longhorn\base\wcp\tools\supersededscavenge\scavenger.cpp(1059): Error c01a001d [Error,Facility=FACILITY_COMMONLOG,Code=29 (0x001d)] originated in function RemoveVersionedIndices expression: NtDeleteKey(Top->Key) 00000cb8 (F) c01a001d [Error,Facility=FACILITY_COMMONLOG,Code=29 (0x001d)] #2353# from ScavengeContext::Run(...) -------------------------------------Clip--------------------------------------- Any one knows what happened?? BTW, the "wmic product" cannot be used anymore. The error is "0x80041001 Generic failure". Is there any method to solve my problem?? It is very ugrent. THanks so much!.

Just to add another voice to this thread.... Our file server is running low on disk space on the C drive - less than 5GB free on a 40GB partition. The figures don't quite add up depending on which tool you use to report on the usage , but there's only about a 2GB discrepancy where the individual folders don't add up to the total. The Windows directory is showing as using 30GB of that, with Program files, Users and the other non-windows files 7GB. Within C:/Windows we have 16.5GB winsxs, 3.7GB System32, 3.7GB Installer and 1.8GB assembly plus various sub 1GB directories. Even if some of the files in winsxs are simply pointers to files elsewhere - the full 2GB discrepancy, that still leaves more than 14GB of data in there which is ridiculous. Yes, disk space is relatively cheap and if I'm buying a new server I'll allocate 100GB for the C drive now, but for a lot of people it's not practical to have to take a server offline, do a full backup, replace the drives and restore. Even a simple repartition can mean a hefty chunk of downtime which isn't always easy to fit in.

I suggest using one of the cheap SSD offerings for the server boot disk now that prices have tumbled significantly I suggest a 256 GB model would be ideal for server OS like Server 2012 etc Virtualization is a different animal and that should be provisioned with a lot more space as needed Windows MVP, XP, Vista, 7 and 8. More people have climbed Everest than having 3 MVP's on the wall. Hardcore Games, Legendary is the only Way to Play Developer | Windows IT | Chess | Economics | Vegan Advocate | PC Reviews