Vista, 30GB!?

[1Cheap2Crazy]

I'm may leave XP Pro for Vista 64-bit(yea, for reals) since I probably can't afford Win7, and don't need to worry about my PC shutting down come March.
I installed Vista on a WD 80GB HD that had Win7. I deleted the partitions and formatted. Picked the 75GB partition and told Vista to use it all. Did the update thing. It took for hours to install them. When I go into My Computer, it says my C drive is only 42.7GB free space. Vista is taking up 32GB? WTF? Did I do something wrong? Should I just try a reinstall?
Can I download SP1 instead of trying the update route?

Also, what free 64-bit apps would you recommend for antivirus and a 2 way firewall.

Thanks

 

[dguy6789]

My Vista Ultimate x64 folder is about 10GB in size.

I suggest using Avira Antivir for antivirus and the built in Vista firewall for your firewall.(It works fine)

 

[Rifter]

I just did a clean install of vista home basic SP1 64bit and it was 17GB after all updates and turning the memory on the restore points down to 300MB and moving the page file off the boot drive.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
My Vista Ultimate x64 folder is about 10GB in size.

I suggest using Avira Antivir for antivirus and the built in Vista firewall for your firewall.(It works fine)

my windows folder is also 10.8GB. That is not what he is talking about though. He did a fresh install and checked the free space on C.

Vista does use a lot of space...

 

[dguy6789]

My install is too old. I did not check disk usage upon my first installation either. I don't know how much total disk space was being used unfortunately.

 

[1Cheap2Crazy]

And stupid me forgot to look at just how much space Windows was taking up. I noticed at the top of Explorer it said free space, 42GB, and I thought WTF? Since I hadn't installed anything else I was wondering how could 30GB fit onto a DVD? Was it the updates? Oh well, I'll probably wait until SP2 comes out or be daring and install Win7.
Wasted the afternoon.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

System Restore reserves 15% of your hard disk space, so 12GB on an 80GB partition. The rest is probably temp files.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto...s-disk-usage-in-vista/

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

System restore + hibernate can easily chew up 20gb together. It's not necessarily the OS itself using your disk space, but the features you have enabled.

 

[Rifter]

That could be your problem, i limit system restore to 300MB and do not use hibernate and vista still chews up 17GB.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I don't even use system restore. If something goes wrong, I'll want a clean install anyways...

 

[heymrdj]

I only have 1GB of sys restore + 4GB of hibernation space (as i have 4GB of memory) + pagefile + temps. I think my Vista was 36GB new.

 

[dawks]

We just did one of these threads a few weeks ago!

Vista will typically match your ram in pagefile and hiberfile size by default. For example, on my system I have 6gigs ram, so there are by default 12 gigs of space consumed by a 6gig swap file, and a 6gig hiberfile. If you don't intend to use hibernation, you can disable this by using disk cleanup and checking the 'clean hiberfile' or good a command to turn it off.

 

[1Cheap2Crazy]

OK, thanks everyone. I'll have to read up more on how to end some of these "extras" that MS thinks we want. But I'm thinking of sticking with XP. I don't take change well and I thought Vista was very different. Also hate eye candy, but turning it off, supposedly stresses the CPU more.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
I don't even use system restore. If something goes wrong, I'll want a clean install anyways...

That is so silly

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
I don't even use system restore. If something goes wrong, I'll want a clean install anyways...

That is so silly

I trust a WHS backup much more

 

[zerogear]

I love VSS, it saved my ass so many times already.

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: 1Cheap2Crazy
OK, thanks everyone. I'll have to read up more on how to end some of these "extras" that MS thinks we want. But I'm thinking of sticking with XP. I don't take change well and I thought Vista was very different. Also hate eye candy, but turning it off, supposedly stresses the CPU more.

That because with the eye candy it uses the GPU for things. Without the eye candy it ignores the GPU.

(Er that is a summary of what happens)