Vista SP Freeing Up Big Disk Space For Some
Vista SP Freeing Up Big Disk Space For Some
Posted 06/01/2009 at 1:37pm
| by Andy Salisbury
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Just last week Microsoft released SP2 for Windows Vista, and it would appear that many users of the update have noticed some massive changes in their free disk space.
Now, when I say ‘massive changes’ I’m not just talking about 500MB here or there, but there have been reported cases of people freeing 40GB and more. One user wrote on PC World’s forums, “Wow! I didn't notice that til now. I went from about 88GB free to 122GB free. That's a significant change 'under the hood,' isn't it?” The biggest recorded case was another user that managed to regain 130GB.
Vista SP2 includes a command-line cleanup tool (compcln.exe) that is used to remove older system files and restore points, therefore freeing up space. Many think that the SP2 installer automatically runs this, but there’s been no official confirmation from Microsoft.
Have you installed SP2, and if so, have you regained any of your hard drive space? If so, let us know!
Image Credit: Microsoft
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cfatmbsc
June 29, 2009 at 3:17am
Well within 2 weeks my freed up HD space is gone back to 139 now. That did'nt take long!
debrene
June 22, 2009 at 1:33pm
This has to be the best tip ever, I recovered 83GB(!) on a 500Gb WD Drive and Ive noticed a considerable speed boost.
dcdannyf
June 16, 2009 at 9:09am
I didn't see any change on the laptop that we have. But, I didn't do it on my PC because I can't. (I'm running Windows 7 RC1!) BIG Danny :)
MystikNomad
June 13, 2009 at 3:48pm
I got 64GB back from my main drive when I finished installing SP2. I wonder why some are getting a little bit of space back like 1-10 gigs or losing some space on their drives. Either way, I'm happy to get a chunk back. Thanks for the 411. =)
codeen
June 11, 2009 at 9:44am
Just installed SP2 and picked up 65 gigs thwen ran cleanup and picked p another 3. Thanks for the info.
Curtai
June 11, 2009 at 6:37am
I got 10GB on my main drive no changes on the others
got 4 GB from disk cleanup too
sebastiantclark678
June 10, 2009 at 3:56pm
i lost 10 GB WITH SP2 and gained 15GB with sp2 whats up with that
DRAGONWEEZEL
June 08, 2009 at 1:38pm
System restore points in Vista are HUGE, as it also backs up files and things that xp sys restore didn't do. It's close to a snapshot. That's why you gain space (tons at first) then it slowly decays away. That space is just going to new restore points.
THERE ARE ONLY 11 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. Those that think binary jokes are funny, those that don't, and those that don't know binary
digital demon
June 10, 2009 at 1:34am
I don't use System Restore, so that might explain why I didn't get anything back. But I turned it off on my girlfriend's laptop as soon as she got it and she got back 19 gigs. That's what is not making sense.
Goolashe
June 08, 2009 at 11:51am
Since I've installed SP2, I've gained at least 150GB of space on my 500GB HDD.
Dethgrip69
June 06, 2009 at 9:51am
I installed SP2 yesterday & gained back 18 GB. I found an article about what changes have been made on technet.microsoft.com, & it said:
SP2 also includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which
helps recover the hard disk space by permanently deleting previous
versions of files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The
Service Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating
slipstream images to reduce the size of the image.I just found that interesting & thought I would share. The full article can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335036.aspx
Deth
Inglburt
June 05, 2009 at 5:54am
I got back that 1 gig I've been missing for so long.
EDIT** I ran disk cleanup from windows after and got another 5 gigs.
SSquirrel
June 03, 2009 at 1:29pm
I dunno, I hadn't cleaned out my browsing cache in several months and when I cleared it out I gained back 17GB. Your computer can develop a lot of junk. My browsing was super fast w/the amount of sludge that Firefox didnt' have to re-download tho heh
comptech08
June 03, 2009 at 12:22pm
lol your not the only one. I am installing SP2 on two computers right now, one just finished up and lost 2 gigs also. I will post my results on the second computer, when it is done.
update-second computer said it gained 33 gigs.
digital demon
June 03, 2009 at 7:48pm
I wonder what the difference is? I keep my computer super clean and junk free...so maybe that's it. I was definitely looking forward to getting back 10 or so gigs, though.
Rob42o
June 02, 2009 at 7:27pm
I installed on my laptop Vista x64, Went from 81GB free to 130GB free. And on my Vista x32 desktop 95.6GB Free to 161GB Free.
digital demon
June 02, 2009 at 6:51pm
Anyone got an idea why the recovered disc space is going away?
hydrant head
June 02, 2009 at 4:28pm
q6600 G0 3.6 Ghz
8800 GTS G92
4 gb ocz pc8000
CM Cosmos
700w Tagan BZ
750 GB Barracuda
Zalman CNPS9700NT
Asus Maximus Formula (non se)
digital demon
June 02, 2009 at 4:25pm
I just installed it on my girlfriend's laptop and got back 19GBs.
PowerJunkie
June 02, 2009 at 3:43pm
I installed SP2 last night and didn't check free disk space until just now... I got about 100GB freed up!! YES!
Zambuie
June 02, 2009 at 6:24am
Sorry to let everyone down, because Service Pack 1 also gave me more free HD space. However it was all gone within a month. Service Pack 2 install is doing the same thing. I went from 49% free space to 62%. Today, three days after downloading, free space has fallen to 59% with no music, picture or document downloads, only regular surfing and email reading.
biggorilla
June 01, 2009 at 7:47pm
I was wondering what was going on with this. I've been staring at the space available on my laptop and I thought, wow where did all that space come from.
Now I know. Thanks for the update MPC!
maniacm0nk3y
June 01, 2009 at 7:30pm
I think this has to do with people that don't clean their computer that much...just a guess, nothing serious. I always use CCleaner/Auslogics Disk Defrag almost every day so I wouldn't be able to see anything.
comptech08
June 03, 2009 at 12:17pm
yes i agree with you. I think it has something to do with that. I alo think it might have something to do with a programing error. Because i dont see how a computer could have 90-150 gigs of junk.
Pentium 0
June 01, 2009 at 7:34pm
Doubt it, as I said before, my Win 7 install was neally fresh and gained 90GB somehow.
bingojubes
June 01, 2009 at 6:13pm
after running the compcln.exe program, i gained 2GB. tried to run it again for a second try but i guess i could only do it once, cause theres nothing else to clean right now.
still waiting to see if it will clean my monitor for me, as well.
nightkiller
June 01, 2009 at 6:09pm
This subdirectory is notorious for reporting that it occupies a huge amount of space in the Windows directory (even though it doesn't).
Is this part of the "space" recovery?
You choose a flightless bird as a mascot and wonder why it doesn't take off?
Mr.Pooney
June 01, 2009 at 6:00pm
Well I did the test and I went from 46.5GB Free to 110GB free
not too dramatic on 500GB but still a welcome surprise!
now to redo my benchmarks!
had anyone seen positive results for themselfs?
gaming/work/video encoding etc
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel C2D E7200
ASUS P5K/EPU MoBo
BFG 8800 GT OC2 Video Card
4GB Kingston HyperX 1066 DDR2 Ram
5 W.D 500GB HD
2 LG G22N 20x DVD±RW DL
CoolerMaster 650Watt PS
Devo85x
June 01, 2009 at 5:35pm
This tempts me, but when I installed SP1 before, i BSODed every hour or so with graphic errors... ended up having to reinstall, maby when I reinstall windows compleatly though
nekollx
June 02, 2009 at 8:21am
my secod laptop got liek 6 gm from component clean and shadow copies.
emkacsuta
June 01, 2009 at 5:09pm
I just installed the Vista SP2 tonight and went from 114GB free to 142 GB free, an increase of 28GB...that's pretty significant. Not as much as 130GB but a nice increase. Thanks to those that reported this and included all the comments, this is something worth telling people about.
Ed Kacsuta
jwalch.hawk
June 01, 2009 at 4:32pm
Heh, I can't remember the last time a Microsoft update to anything served to free up space rather than consume it. Guess we should mark the date in history.
Nonetheless, I'd have to echo the concerns of a previous commenter... If it's deleting way too much in the way of shadow copies and restore points, that's a risk. Yeah, in some (most?) cases there's probably way more redundancy there than necessary, but if that one guy's anecdote about it deleting ALL restore points is true, that's a potentially steep price to pay. Thankfully most savvy folks back up everything through other means anyway.
Chuckles
June 01, 2009 at 4:11pm
On my vista laptop, I was continually running out of space, despite deleting stuff. Under disck cleanup, more options tab I cleaned up the system restore and shadow copies and got...no kidding...40g from a 140g drive. Now this laptop is backed up on a Windows Home Server system, so I dont know if this effected this or not. But 40 gigs of shadow copies or restore points is assinine.
Techrocket9
June 01, 2009 at 3:39pm
I got 10 gigs free. It deleted all (yes all, even the one automatically made before the install) of my restore points. I don't consider space saving at the cost of safety a feature.
____________________________________________________
An army of pacifists can be defeated by one man with the will to fight.
Pentium 0
June 01, 2009 at 3:00pm
I got about 20GBs back at first then I lost 10GBs somewhere. WinDirStat reports only 48.4GB's worth of files but My Computer says I've used 58.5...
I regained a whopping 90GBs on my Win 7 PC my using the Disk clean up utility to delete the old restore points and stuff. I was perplexed as to how I had used 137GBs on a couple-week-old install. Those 90GBs didnt appear on WinDirStat either. Im sure I'm not the only one right?
yogurt80
June 01, 2009 at 4:08pm
I didn't take actual measurements, but my Win7 is on a 500 GB HD, partitiioned to ~80 for windows, 420 for files. I noticed I'd suddenly used all but 1GB of space on m C drive, I ran disk cleanup and cleaned up my old restore points, and got back 60GB.
Havok
June 01, 2009 at 5:24pm
I'm running '7' also. Ran disk cleanup before on my XP machine, got back a whopping 78 megs of a 250 gig hardrive. This time around, I managed to recover about 10 gigs of my 160 gig 2.5 HDD.
I can't believe this crap actually works this time around. Like what Norm said:
"The first time something cool works, that you expect to work, you realize this is something new and magical....and not windows."
(I'm trying to quote from memory)
OMGWTFBBQ
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