winsxs folder in vista x64 ultimate

[AznMaverick]

I have a 40 GB partition for vista and the winsxs folder in C:\Windows is taking up about 12 GB. I'm wondering what I can do to clean it out. I've googled some info about what the folder is, nothing about what I can do to empty it out. Any suggestions?

 

[masteryoda34]

Winsxs is important windows stuff afaik. Its been there since XP. For some reason its rather large on 64bit Vista.

 

[AznMaverick]

Yeah, I read that too. I read that these files are needed to support apps that are made to run on 32 bit and other platforms better. But I also understand that there are duplicate system files there as well. Wish MS would clean up after itself better. I also forgot that since i installed 8 GB of RAM i should lower my page file and that is another reason my HDD space is so low.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: AznMaverick
Yeah, I read that too. I read that these files are needed to support apps that are made to run on 32 bit and other platforms better. But I also understand that there are duplicate system files there as well. Wish MS would clean up after itself better. I also forgot that since i installed 8 GB of RAM i should lower my page file and that is another reason my HDD space is so low.

The duplicate files are actually hardlinks, the DONT take as much space as a simple dir would suggest. See the sxs discussion here http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/default.aspx

 

[WT]

Same here. My folder is up to 13+gb, and my one roomy 50gb partition is now pinched. I deleted as much fluff as I could and freed up 17gb, but it wasn't easy.