Does Vista SP1 delete files?

[sblake]

I did a full backup using True Image Home 11.0 before and after upgrading to Vista SP1. The before backup used 37,690,955KB and the after backup used 16,623,834KB. Does the SP1 upgrade delete files or am I just going nuts.

 

[mzkhadir]

could it be that you are using compression ?

 

[sblake]

I did both backups with default settings. Same compression on both backups.

 

[QuixoticOne]

Actually it doesn't really delete files, sometimes, sort of.

1) If recycle bin is turned on, the files will stay in purgatory taking up space on the many types of image until it is emptied and the unused disk sectors are manually zero-filled.

2) ShadowCopy is enabled in every version of Vista that I know of, even if it is 'useless' with no management capability in Home Basic / Home Premium. Many / most / all(?) changed/deleted files will stay floating on the disc as shadow copies of themselves. They will make the compression of many image backups worse until they permanently disappear and the sectors they occupy are manually zero filled.

If your image software is smart enough to be able to ignore shadow copies and recycle bin files, it shouldn't really hurt your image size to have these features enabled. I guess however since the real intent of these two features is to make these files recoverable as much as possible until there just isn't spare disc space to hold the "spare" data (in which case the space is ultimately reclaimed automatically and the deletion/changes become irrevocable), I think most backup programs would tend to preserve files in these states by default.

 

[JustaGeek]

It deletes all the System Restore images. If you check the System Restore points, there will be only one - "Installed Service Pack".

System restore is given 15% of the drive space by Vista.

That translates to about 40GB on my 300GB (279GB) HD (ouch!) 😉

 

[QuixoticOne]

Oh yeah that reminds me, check the documentation for:
sp1cln

it is a utility to clean up the uninstall information left over from SP1 in case you want to uninstall it someday; if you delete that information, there is no (easily) going back.

 

[JustaGeek]

There is no easy going back anyway.

Yesterday I made a mistake of uninstalling the SP1, since my "accidental February release" version still had a "Beta" in the update description, thinking that I will be able to re-install it immediately from Windows Update.

BIG MISTAKE.

The Windows Updates stopped working, and there were errors in the Event Viewer, with the dssenh.dll failing the "Security Audit".

Tried to do restore, but that failed.

Finally decided to download the standalone, and the installation went well this afternoon.

Long story short - I don't think you can successfully uninstall the SP1.

But I would not remove these SP1 installation files - who knows what they might still have to be used for...

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Actually it doesn't really delete files, sometimes, sort of.

1) If recycle bin is turned on, the files will stay in purgatory taking up space on the many types of image until it is emptied and the unused disk sectors are manually zero-filled.

2) ShadowCopy is enabled in every version of Vista that I know of, even if it is 'useless' with no management capability in Home Basic / Home Premium.

Not sure why you call it 'useless', Shadowcopy is the backing store for System Restore which all those versions support.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
There is no easy going back anyway.

Yesterday I made a mistake of uninstalling the SP1, since my "accidental February release" version still had a "Beta" in the update description, thinking that I will be able to re-install it immediately from Windows Update.

BIG MISTAKE.

The Windows Updates stopped working, and there were errors in the Event Viewer, with the dssenh.dll failing the "Security Audit".

Tried to do restore, but that failed.

Finally decided to download the standalone, and the installation went well this afternoon.

Long story short - I don't think you can successfully uninstall the SP1.

But I would not remove these SP1 installation files - who knows what they might still have to be used for...

I've done it - twice. Once with the accidental release in Feb, the second time a couple hours ago. Granted, the second time I used System Restore, but when I uninstalled the accidental one (to fix various problems I was having; there are threads about them in Operating Systems), all I did was go into Safe Mode and uninstall Service Pack 1. A little while later, my computer is a clean Vista again, sans problems. The second time, when I uninstalled the real SP1, I just used System Restore to restore my system from the save point created by the install process, went and played Brawl for an hour, and came back to a clean Vista (again). Now I'm reinstalling SP1 (except I think the installation is frozen or just being retarded).

 

[QuixoticOne]

Originally posted by: bsobel
Not sure why you call it 'useless', Shadowcopy is the backing store for System Restore which all those versions support.

Ok well maybe I painted it with a little too broad of a brush.

To be more specific, I think I've seen files of general sorts other than those that I would assume would be relevant to system restore creating shadow copies under Home Premium. If my recollection is correct, I don't understand why it would keep shadow copies of files when there's no possible interface the OS gives you to actually restore those files / versions in that edition of the OS.

Hmm maybe they were mostly executables, but I think there were lots of other temporary files too that I saw shadows of, but I could be wrong; I was just surprised to see any at all given the OS edition.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne

Originally posted by: bsobel
Not sure why you call it 'useless', Shadowcopy is the backing store for System Restore which all those versions support.

Ok well maybe I painted it with a little too broad of a brush.

To be more specific, I think I've seen files of general sorts other than those that I would assume would be relevant to system restore creating shadow copies under Home Premium. If my recollection is correct, I don't understand why it would keep shadow copies of files when there's no possible interface the OS gives you to actually restore those files / versions in that edition of the OS.

Hmm maybe they were mostly executables, but I think there were lots of other temporary files too that I saw shadows of, but I could be wrong; I was just surprised to see any at all given the OS edition.

Basically MS didn't change how the shadow service works between all of the Vista versions, it functions exactly the same in every version that features it. From an AT article, it sounded like MS wanted/expected someone to write an interface for Vista Home to open up the same kind of access that Previous Versions does under Business and higher. The API to do so is open after all.