How to Maximize Space on your SSD Hard Drive in Windows 7 using Symbolic Links. Update, April 1. 7 2. If you move your winsxs folder to another drive, important/critical Windows Updates will fail with error code 8. Windows Update won’t work with junctioned files, it requires hardlinks to the actual location of the data. There was a workaround for this in Windows Vista, but stopped working as of SP1. You can still move the folder to save space, but won’t be able to run any more updates! Update, July 6 2. Here’s a handy article that explains the winsxs folder in detail, for those of you who just want to understand “why?!”If you’re anything like me, you want to run the latest- greatest programs on the newest operating systems available — and the worst thing you can do is sit and stare at loading screens. Your time is too important! One of the best ways get blazing- fast performance from your computer is to run your OS from an SSD hard drive. But, while they may be fast, let’s face it — they’re definitely not the biggest hard drives in the world. Because 5. 00. GB+ drives are so inexpensive nowadays, the latest- greatest programs and operating systems all seem to assume everybody has tons of extra space. But what if you’re installing them onto an SSD hard drive? Do you really have 1. ![]() GB to waste on a collection of restore points, previous updates, and cache files for 7 languages you don’t even speak? While programs like CCleaner are very helpful, deleting cache and temporary files are only going to free up so much space. No, it’s time for drastic measures! Today, I freed up over 1. GB of space on my SSD hard drive — without losing a single file. Here’s how I did it! The Investigation. This week, my Limited Edition copy of Crysis 2 arrived. It was a no- brainer which drive I wanted to install it on: my Corsair SSD. ![]() ![]() ![]() When I saw the system requirements, though — “at least 9 GB of free space” — I was a bit surprised to see I only had 3. GB left!“What the heck? Where did all my space go?!”With the help of Tree. I moved that folder to another partition. My server is Windows 2008 R2, and is DC. Here's the steps: 1. Logon as administrator. Copy C:\windows\winsxs to z:\windows. In last week's TR Dojo Challenge question, I asked TechRepublic members how do you safely reduce the size of the WinSxS folder. Before we get to the solution, let's. I got a great question from Brian this week: "Is there a quick way to delete the temp files for all user profiles? We have some PC’s that many users l. I started using Live Mail while I was on Vista-64 (upgrading from Windows Mail). After upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit, Live Mail had a lot of glitches and doesn't. The WinSxS directory doesn't take up nearly the space reported by Explorer since it uses Hard Links to physical files, not actual files. Explorer just has issues. ![]() ![]() Size Free, I was quickly able to identify where all my free space went (see the program in action here.)The first culprit was a huge (5. GB) folder named “winsxs” which sat in the Windows directory. ![]() Learn about WinSxs folder of Windows 10/8/7. What is WinSxS directory? Can you remove, backup files or delete WinSxS folder? Is WinSxS cleanup recommended? ![]() Looking through it, I found a collection folders with scary names and locked permissions. The first thing I did was search for “delete winsxs” on Google — and found a ton of pages which almost unanimously told me to leave it alone.“Come on, really?” I thought. What happens when the winsxs folder hits 2. GB? What do I do — uninstall the programs I need to run my business?”The Solution. Eventually, I came upon a forum discussion which told me exactly how to remove it. WARNING: Proceed at your own risk. Incorrectly performing the following procedure may cause irreversible damage to your OS. It is highly recommended to backup your system before proceeding. Below is the procedure: You will need two utilities: Pend. Moves and Move. File. Place them in \Windows\System. Procedure: 1. In Windows Explorer navigate to the \Windows\Win. SXS directory. Right click the directory to bring up the quick menu and select Properties. You will need to assign the Administrator user account ownership of the directory and then grant the Administrators group Full Access. Open an administrator command prompt, and create a dummy directory. Execute “mkdir c: \windows\winsxs. Next, create a junction (like a Symbolic link for Vista). Execute “mklink /J c: \windows\winsxs. Now delete the winsxs. Execute “rmdir c: \windows\winsxs. Now we will use Move. File to schedule renaming of the Win. SXS directory at reboot. This is the magic that will give us control over the directory. From the administrator command prompt, execute “movefile c: \windows\winsxs c: \windows\winsxs. As you can see, this is renaming the Win. Sx. S directory before Vista can get a lock. From the command prompt, run “movefile c: \windows\winsxs. This puts a winsxs directory back (as far as Vista is concerned), so everything doesn’t collapse in a heap. From the command prompt, run “pendmoves“. It will show the two pending moves you’ve entered above, with NO ERRORS. If it all looks good, REBOOT! After a bit of confusion, I entered a command prompt from Startup Repair and put everything back to the way it was before I started. I then repeated steps 1- 8, being extra- careful this time. On reboot the critical renames/moves will execute, and the Win. Sx. S directory will be unlocked and able to be moved in the next steps. Open an administrator command prompt, and execute “dir c: \windows\winsxs*“. If you performed the previous steps correctly, you’ll see a Win. Sx. S. moved directory and the Win. Sx. S junction. If it did not work, repeat the above steps. Our next step is to relocate the Win. SXS directory and amend the junction. Using Windows Explorer, COPY the entire Win. Sx. S. moved directory to a \Windows directory on another partition or drive. When the copy is finished, rename the new directory from Win. Sx. S. moved to Win. Sx. S. 1. 3. Go to an administrator command prompt and execute “rmdir c: \windows\winsxs“. Then, execute “mklink /J c: \windows\winsxs d: \windows\winsxs“. To be sure everything is happy, in Windows Explorer browse to c: \windows\winsxs. You will see all of the files. After reboot, you should be able to delete c: \windows\winsxs. FINALLY liberate all that disk space. Now take a bow. This process can also be applied to the Windows Updates directory. When you download Windows Updates etc., the files get placed into C: \Windows\Software. Distribution, and this will quickly become huge. It is easier though. There were over 1. I was gonna do them 1. I needed a recursive script that would go through every single folder and set permissions. I found it here! 9 GB freed — and no files were lost! The Fun Continues!“Well that was exciting! How much more space can I free up?”Tree. Size told me there was a ton of other stuff taking up space, such as Adobe. Patch. Files, Speech. Analysis. Models and a few Local. Store folders. Most of them would probably never get used — no sense keeping them all on my precious SSD drive! If I could move it all to one of my larger- capacity 7. RPM drives, I wouldn’t have to worry about space and the performance would be “good enough” considering how often the files would be accessed. Typing folders into a command prompt didn’t really do it for me, though — not to mention mklink doesn’t seem to work if there’s a space in the folder name, such as “Program Files (x. My salvation came from the wonderful Junction Link Magic! A mere 1. 0 minutes later, I had freed up an additional 6. GB of space. Long live the Symbolic Link!
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