Hard drive size puzzle after Anniversary Upgrade

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  1. Posts : 104
    Windows 10
       #1

    Hard drive size puzzle after Anniversary Upgrade


    I have a situation which I am totally unable to explain.

    I have a Dell 1750 notebook and a Dell 660s. Both run the 32-bit Windows 10 on a 64-bit hardware architecture.
    The only significant difference in installed software is that the Dell-660s has Microsoft Flight Simulator installed.

    Obviously, the sizes of the C: drive should reflect a small difference because of Flight Simulator and some support software for it. Also for minor differences in hardware and hardware support software. No user data is stored on either hard drive.

    Since the Anniversary Upgrade (perhaps coincidental) the Dell 660s seems to have a huge amount of additional material on C:. And I can't find it. Prior to that, they were within any logical differences, a gig or two. If I total the space of the folders on C:, they still are. But File Explorer shows a great difference. Full backup images (Acronis) of the entire hard drives, both with the same compression level, are 18gB vs 23gB, supporting the File Explorer number for C:total total usage.

    $GetCurrent, and Windows10Upgrade are not removed by Cleanup System Files. For some reason Windows.old was removed on the Dell 1750 but will not go away on the Dell 660s.

    Recap: (See below for details)

    35.5gB --- 54.5gb ------- C:
    36gB ----- 38.6gB ------- Rough totals adding the sizes of the large (gB) individual folders.
    -0.5gB --- 15.9gB ------- Difference I can't find or explain

    Can anyone suggest what I may be missing, where I can find it, and how to get rid of it if it isn't necessary?


    Here are the detail numbers for the folders on C:with "Show hidden files, folders and drives" checked and "Hide protected operating system files" unchecked.

    d/n/s: difference, but no sweat
    n/p: not present on this computer

    35.5gB ------- 54.5gb ----- C: (Wow!!!!)
    246kB -------- 246kB ------ $GetCurrent
    821kB -------- 129B -------- $RECYCLE.BIN (d/n/s)
    20.7mB ------ 17.7mB ----- Boot (d/n/s)
    440kB -------- 440kb ------- Brother
    0 --------------- 0 -------------- Config.Msi
    334mB ------ 12kB --------- Dell (d/n/s) (notebook support)
    a link on both Documents and Settings
    606B --------- 0 -------------- Downloads from Firefox (d/n/s)
    168mB ------ n/p ------------ Drivers (d/n/s) (notebook support)
    256kB ------- n/p ------------ EFI (d/n/s) (not sure why it is there)
    n/p ------------ 24.8mB ----- Flight One Software (d/n/s)
    97.1kB ------ 97.1kB ------ inetpub
    0 -------------- n/p ------------ Installer
    413kB ------ 74.4kB ------- Intel (d/n/s)
    n/p ----------- 1.86mB ------ MININT (d/n/s)
    n/p ----------- 0 --------------- MSOCache
    10.4gB ---- 12.5gB ------- Program Files (d/n/s)
    751mB ---- 681mB ------- Program Data (d/n/s)
    0 ------------ 0 ---------------- Recovery
    0 ------------ 0 ---------------- System Volume Information
    4.26mB --- 2.48mB ------ Users (d/n/s)
    1.37mB -- 1.37mB ------- VC_RED.cab
    139kb ----- 0 --------------- WCH.CN (d/n/s)
    10.2gB --- 10.gB --------- Windows (d/n/s)
    n/p --------- 740kB -------- Windows.old (d/n/s)
    15.4mB -- 15.5mB ------ Windows10Upgrade (d/n/s)

    (Edited to make table a bit more readable and to clarify some comments.)
    Last edited by ARYLIOA; 16 Aug 2016 at 13:03.
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  2. Posts : 8,057
    windows 10
       #2

    When you run disk clean after first scan have you then hit system files button which will rescan and remove 15gig
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  3. Posts : 104
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Samuria said:
    When you run disk clean after first scan have you then hit system files button which will rescan and remove 15gig
    Thanks for the quick response.

    I have even repeated that several times. The Windows.old, which I presume is the 15gig you mean, went away on the Dell 1750 but remains at 744kB on the other computer. I have a feeling this somehow has left some "phantom" usage out there that I cannot find or remove.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 14,046
    Windows 11 Pro X64 22H2 22621.1848
       #4

    Install Treesize Free. It will show you what is occupying space on your drive.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 2,539
    Windows 10 Pro 64bit
       #5

    You can download CCleaner to remove the files/folder which cleaning windows.old folder left behind, I had to do this.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 104
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    Doctor9fan said:
    You can download CCleaner to remove the files/folder which cleaning windows.old folder left behind, I had to do this.
    Thanks. I tried that. C: went from 54.1gB to 53.1gb. Not much different than a normal Disk Cleanup after a few days. It probably got a few things Firefox had stashed in caches that Disk Cleanup doesn't get. I saw a bunch of references to those flash by. But other than that, doesn't address my concern. I'm really still looking for another 15gig or so.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 8,057
    windows 10
       #7

    UnCleaner - Josh Cell Softwares get rid of a lot of stuff and its free
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 104
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #8

    Ztruker said:
    Install Treesize Free. It will show you what is occupying space on your drive.
    Thanks. It took me a few days to get around to this since I was also spending time on finding out why W10 killed Streets & Trips on me (still don't know). But this gets me closer on this problem. I still have no idea why the problem exists or how to correct it.

    First, I had no idea that File Explorer could hide stuff from me even with "Show hidden files, folders and drives" checked and "Hide protected operating system files" unchecked. That alone seems to be yet another big problem with File Explorer.

    Hard drive size puzzle after Anniversary Upgrade-system-volume-information-1745.jpg
    Hard drive size puzzle after Anniversary Upgrade-system-volume-information-660s.jpg
    The 21.7gig on the 660s vs the 4.9gB on the 1745 surely has to hold the 15gig I have been looking for. But how to be sure of that, and how to get rid of it is a real problem. Most of the structures have cryptic names, so no clue there. None of the "cleaners" seem to touch it. And not being an insider, I have no idea what is valid in there, what is throw away, and what will happen if I do toss stuff at random. Obviously, I can keep tossing and restoring until the system crashes and restore to the image before that. Reminds me of Russian Roulette. The system might run for months until some system or software action needs something I removed. The Kaboom! And by then, my 4-cycle scheme of keeping images may be long gone.

    Any ideas on the structure here, and perhaps insight into a known fallacy in what is there would be helpful. Maybe this is just one of those things I will have to live with until another major update might wipe things clean.

    (I only show numbers on two computers since those have nearly identical software on them. Another computer without some of the graphics-heavy software has much smaller numbers, the total size of the content on C: is proportionally smaller at 38gig. So the problem seems isolated to the 660s.)
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  9. Posts : 3,257
    Windows 10 Pro
       #9

    System Volume Information is where Restore Points are kept. This backs up certain files and system configurations so they can be restored later.

    You can purge this if you really want by typing "system restore" in Cortana, then choosing Create a Restore Point, then clicking on Configure, and finally Delete
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 9,765
    Mac OS Catalina
       #10

    Streets & Trip was deleted because it was discontinued. If you have any software on the hard drive during the upgrade, it will be deleted. The graphical size programs will show you what is taking up what space. Fire fox and no other programs are hiding anything. If you ran Disk Cleanup and choose System, then cleared out old restore points, checked all boxes, whatever would be taking up space from the migration and the old install would be gone.

    It is suggested that after you do an in place upgrade, that you do a Clean install of Windows 10, so that it starts with a clean slate and you do not have problems that were from the old install roll into the new.
      My Computer


 

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