So why does windows 7 use less memory and run faster?

[dman]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: Snapster

Originally posted by: dman

So I understand the links explanation, but, it's BS the part about how little space it actually uses. Windows7 SXS starts out at 10GB which is about the same as my current Vista install (both 64bit). I never had a problem (on my or other folks systems) with removing or overwriting old dll's for compatibility reasons so I don't see the need. I guess drive space is cheap so I'm not going to dwell on it, it's here to stay.

You understand the links but then say BS on the space it actually uses? They freely admit windows explorer reports the figure wrong when you do folder / explorer properties, how were you measuring it ?

Some things just boggle the mind.

OK, the article claims only 400MB is actually being used on an average system. I've seen no reports to date to back that up. Thus, I think it's BS. So now we're going to argue it's all just links and the files are in other folders, and therefore the space is reported incorrectly... right?

On my system, The total storage in use by Vista is 17GB for the Windows sub tree (including WinSXS), outside of that there's 8GB for a page file, 2.3GB for Program Files, and 2GB for User storage. All those add up to 29.3GB. I've got another 2.6GB in misc folders (drivers, etc). I aim not to keep any of my data on the OS Partition. Alltogether thats 31GB of Storage in use.

In c: properties I have 28.5GB in use, and 10.5GB free space (39.0GB Total). The sum of the folders adds up to ~31GB - 28.5GB = 2.5GB. WinSXS claims it's mostly hardlinks, so perhaps instead of 10GB it's really only using 7.5GB? Still a heck of a lot more than 400MB.

Shall I run a different utility?

Also, see Core Team Blog, slightly different description.

 

[bsobel]

WinSXS claims it's mostly hardlinks

There has to be one original version of each component somewhere on the system, it can be in the SXS directories. Each additional copy is an NTFS hardlink, with standard formatting each of those take 4k. SXS doesn't magically remove the space needed for the original file, your simply not using X times that space for each side by side copy. Your using original size plus 4k per copy.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: dman

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: Snapster

Originally posted by: dman

So I understand the links explanation, but, it's BS the part about how little space it actually uses. Windows7 SXS starts out at 10GB which is about the same as my current Vista install (both 64bit). I never had a problem (on my or other folks systems) with removing or overwriting old dll's for compatibility reasons so I don't see the need. I guess drive space is cheap so I'm not going to dwell on it, it's here to stay.

You understand the links but then say BS on the space it actually uses? They freely admit windows explorer reports the figure wrong when you do folder / explorer properties, how were you measuring it ?

Some things just boggle the mind.

OK, the article claims only 400MB is actually being used on an average system. I've seen no reports to date to back that up. Thus, I think it's BS. So now we're going to argue it's all just links and the files are in other folders, and therefore the space is reported incorrectly... right?

On my system, The total storage in use by Vista is 17GB for the Windows sub tree (including WinSXS), outside of that there's 8GB for a page file, 2.3GB for Program Files, and 2GB for User storage. All those add up to 29.3GB. I've got another 2.6GB in misc folders (drivers, etc). I aim not to keep any of my data on the OS Partition. Alltogether thats 31GB of Storage in use.

In c: properties I have 28.5GB in use, and 10.5GB free space (39.0GB Total). The sum of the folders adds up to ~31GB - 28.5GB = 2.5GB. WinSXS claims it's mostly hardlinks, so perhaps instead of 10GB it's really only using 7.5GB? Still a heck of a lot more than 400MB.

Shall I run a different utility?

Also, see Core Team Blog, slightly different description.

http://twpol.dyndns.org/weblog/2008/10/31/01

 

[dman]

Originally posted by: BD2003http://twpol.dyndns.org/weblog/2008/10/31/01

Thanks. IF anyone cares:

Vista64U--
Naive file size: 25,843,281,676
Unique file size: 21,350,414,727 ( 82%)
Difference: 4,492,866,949 ( 17%)

~4GB of 'shared' files. WinSXS = ~10GB reported, so still 6GB Minimum of unique storage.

Win7B_64U--
Naive file size: 14,557,452,647
Unique file size: 9,581,253,267 ( 65%)
Difference: 4,976,199,380 ( 34%)

Win7 is a pretty clean install right now, very little apps added (antivirus, etc).

Thus, I still don't think that it's only taking a small amount ("400MB of space"). [I believe on x86 and/or basic edition it's smaller, and that's probably still the majority of the user base % wise.] Seriously, It doesn't bother me that it's there or that it's taking space, I just wanted to know if it changed in Win7. In the end, my impact is instead of using a 20GB OS partition for XP I use a 40GB partition for Vista/Win7.

 

[4537256]

go with Linux then if you cant be happy.

 

[leolo]

Use this tool to check the size of the WinSxS folder:

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb896651.aspx

Use the -u option, to count only unique occurences

Here are my results (Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1):

C:\Windows\winsxs>du -u

Du v1.33 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files: 52953
Directories: 14335
Size: 11 097 917 118 bytes
Size on disk: 11 097 917 118 bytes


C:\Windows\winsxs>du .

Du v1.33 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files: 56630
Directories: 14335
Size: 11 803 307 820 bytes
Size on disk: 11 803 307 820 bytes

So, I guess that that quoted 400 MB figure was probably bullshit (or perhaps simply a honest mistake)

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: leolo
Use this tool to check the size of the WinSxS folder:

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb896651.aspx

Use the -u option, to count only unique occurences

You used the tool wrong. You scanned the SXS folder only, so each hardlink got charged the full 'cost' of its size. You can only determine its savings when used in conjunction with substracting that storage elsewhere on the system where the hardlink is used.

This is a number game. If I have the file foo.exe and its 1meg. That file is put into the sxs directory and a hardlink is created in system32 or the file is put into system32 and a hardlink is created in sxs the result is the same. I takes up 1meg for the data of the file and two MFT entries. So just counting files in the sxs directory with that tool is going to count the size of the backing file, but your forgetting that 11gig is then needs to be subtracted from your non SXS directories...

 

[leolo]

OK, I see. Thanks a lot for the explanation!

Here are the corrected results, then:

C:\Windows>du -u

Du v1.33 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files: 69101
Directories: 17499
Size: 15 610 000 315 bytes
Size on disk: 15 608 659 804 bytes


C:\Windows>du .

Du v1.33 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files: 84761
Directories: 17499
Size: 19 830 103 150 bytes
Size on disk: 19 828 762 639 bytes

 

[leolo]

Well, but...

What if there are other hardlinks that exist outside of the c:\windows folder and are pointing to files inside c:\windows?

Do I have to scan the entire drive? And how do I find duplicates? Yikes, measuring this is certainly much more annoying than I previously thought!

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: leolo
Well, but...

What if there are other hardlinks that exist outside of the c:\windows folder and are pointing to files inside c:\windows?

Do I have to scan the entire drive? And how do I find duplicates? Yikes, measuring this is certainly much more annoying than I previously thought!

Exactly... NTFS doesn't provide an easy way for a series of files to realize they are hardlinked to the same content. You can determine the number of 'owners' of a data stream, but not who they are.

 

[dman]

Originally posted by: leolo
OK, I see. Thanks a lot for the explanation!

Here are the corrected results, then:

C:\Windows>du -u
Size on disk: 15 608 659 804 bytes
C:\Windows>du .
Size on disk: 19 828 762 639 bytes

Thus, approximately 4GB difference.

Similarly to the other tool, I also ran this with and without -u options on the whole drive and came up with:
Size on disk: 34,409,963,021 bytes
-u = Size on disk: 29,917,081,302 bytes

And folks, please, I'm not hating on MS/windows. I use Vista and like it. This is really my only annoyance, and it's minor, I just allocate more storage. I simply asked the question because I wasn't sure if it was going to be the same with Win7. I got a response that it was, but it was a non-issue, that it's not really using a lot of storage that it's just an illusion. Draw your own conclusions on that. Again, not a big deal.

 

[BD2003]

Now, here's what I'm really curious about, and it's really the crux of the matter. I've never run out of space, so I dont know the answer. If as far as explorer is concerned, it's taking up "real" space, how does one actually going about using the space thats really there?

For instance, explorer reports 60GB usedon my 100GB drive.
Going into the C drive, and checking properties of all folders, reports 60GB used. Everything adds up (including "17GB" of WinSXS), to 60GB.

So explorer is indeed unable to properly measure this.

So if as far as the shell is concerned, that space is really used up, how does one actually get to that free space? Does explorer get magically unconfused as free space shrink, will it continue to write to a "full" disk? Does WinSXS appear to shrink?

Because whether or not it is or isnt "using" the space is irrelevant if you can't actually use that "hidden free space".

If you cant, is this a bug of explorer, or a limitation of NTFS?

 

[Ketchup]

The article listed above seems to indicate it's a "limitation" of NTFS. I find it humorous
since Microsoft made both, so more than likely they didn't think it was important enough to fix. Still, I was thinking it would be fun to test this theory by over filling a hard drive, since it technically could hold an extra 17 GB .

 

[4537256]

Originally posted by: iFX
LOL @ the "Vista is bloatware" comments.

Stupid people always use that line to bash Vista. Listen you turkeys, Vista doesn't have high ram usage - the stupid shit you load on your PC does. I use Vista Business 64 every day on my work PC and I rarely get over 700MB usage. My Vista machine idles at around 450MB. Guess what? My Windows 7 box bahaves the same exact way!

Vista and Windows 7 have very respectable ram usage - it's the stupid shit programs you load up which sends the usage sky high. Complain to those companies who made your shitty applications if you have a problem with ram usage.

i suppose compared to other OS's, it does have high ram usage. Those stupid "sh*t" programs loaded dont seem to be issues on other OS's....so that is the issue.

SuperFetc itself can be problematic for some users as well,load it on a laptop with 2 gig or less so your hard drive can swap all the time and see how you like using it then. The ram used in use isnt usually the problem, it becomes a problem when it has to read/write to hard drive all the time everytime you load an app or game, in those instances it helps to shut off SF, but most general users dont know how to do that, its not hard to imagine why users complain when 90% of them dont know squat about tech jargon geek stuff of pc's and own Dell/HP computers.

my issue with Vista and W7 is its footprint on the hard drive, it becomes a big deal when you have a small SSD. cant use 16gig or even 32 gig once the apps are installed and system restore is in full swing. 64 gig is minimal for general usage really which is crap when you install Xp or Linux and have tons more room for music n stuff.

point is, OS is just an interface to use applications. When the OS interferes with using applications and requireing higher end hardware to use the same applications, its pretty much the main problem and your defeating the whole purpose of having a computer