How big is your desktop software stack?

[JEM_staff]

I have a test computer with several hard drives in it, each with a different operating system. When I need to test a new software program or hardware peripheral, I can quickly assess its compatibility across several platforms with this computer. The hard drives are a mix between Western Digital Raptor 36GB and Seagate Barracuda SATA-V 160GB models -- fairly new, fairly fast, and presumably spacious enough for my test OSes. It did not occur to me that I might ever run out of space on the 36GB drives because there is very little "real life" data on it -- just a few megabytes worth of documents, pictures, and other test data. Since switching to Linux and BSD, I have come to think of personal data as being the big storage sink, with the operating system and desktop software being the minimal part of the hard drive's space. Well, that doesn't hold true in Windows Vista. I made the mistake of putting 64-bit Vista on one of the Raptor drives, and after a little over a month of sporadic, short-term use, I'm out of free space. This, to me, is astonishing. How is all that space being used?

How big is your desktop software stack?

[beejay]

Let me see if I can supply any helpful information. My machine was built as a "Surf 'n Email" device. M'board is ASUS P5LD2-VM with graphics and sound embedded. 3 ghz Celeron, 1 gig ram, nominal 80 gig HD. Operating system is Windows XP with SP2 and multitudinous security fixes, etc, courtesy of Microsoft.

80 gig drive shows 74.4 gig "available." Of that 33.7 is "used" while 40.7 is "free."

So before I ever started 5.6 gig was lost to formatting and unspecified "overhead" of some sort, probably including what used to be called the "swap file" (and perhaps it still is called that).

"Use" by folders appears to include:

23.7 gig in "Documents and Settings" (My lovely spouse is getting very interested in digital photography!)

3.9 gig in "Program Files" Note that I am not running Office on this machine because I do not need it. Word is in use as are T'bird and Firefox.

.73 gig in PNP Drivers

3.08 gig in Windows

.94 gig in Recycler (varies, obviously)

On my spiffy ten dollar calculator this adds up to 38.04 gigabytes. The difference between this number and the 33.7 gig reported as "Used" apparently involves the initial space lost to formatting etc.

I suspect this is not an unusual profile for a "light duty" Windows XP machine.

So Vista ate up a 36 gig Raptor?? My word, no wonder you are curious!

Things like this make me curious about Linux.

[Valour]

I'm still amazed that the Vista operating system alone is almost 12GB. I'll probably never know where the missing hard drive space is, but I bet it's related to the swap file or some super-hidden files that handle system restore functions or something similar.

[beejay]

I certainly understand that code gets larger and less efficient as talented programmer time costs more than bigger and faster hardware. But this is ridiculous. We need a Windows Maven to explain 12 gigabytes.

If I "upgrade" to do exactly what I am doing I need 4X the space for an operating system -- and probably more graphics power for the cutsie visuals?

Hmmmmmm. Makes no sense Valour, even if we assume secret files, a plethora of restore points and the like.

[Valour]

11.5GB, I might add, was only a fraction of the total portion of Vista Ultimate that I could have installed.

Most desktop Linux distros have similar graphical toys to Vista's Aero interface, but they don't take up anywhere near the same amount of space *just for the operating system.* I've been using Linux and BSD for so long that I've almost stopped thinking in terms of abstract OSes and desktop software. I'm used to the concept of the "software distribution" -- of most of what I need being packaged together and integrated nicely.

I'm amazed that Microsoft did not switch to the package management philosophy years ago. Windows Update should have been expanded to include an installation mechanism for Windows destkop software, and it should have been in better sync with updated drivers from hardware manufacturers. But all it really is is a cheap patch mechanism for Windows and (now) Office. Such a huge opportunity missed there.

Package management and desktop integration ala the "software distribution" philosophy is the single biggest asset that Linux has, above all else. FreeBSD does operating system development better than Linux; OpenBSD does security better; Solaris has more high-end features. Linux, though, in the form of a major desktop distro, has an advanced and user-friendly software management and integration framework.

[Bruce Dunn]

I have a VISTA system with a hard drive size of 298 GB. VISTA, program files and everything that I can access from the Computer window (with hidden files and system files showing) total up to 17.3 GB. However, inquiring about the properties of the drive shows that 59.7 GB of space are used! I am therefore not trying to account for 2 or 3 GB of missing hard drive space, but am missing 59.7-17.3 = 42.4 GB of space.

I found out where the space went - it is in a series of system restore points. They are in a directory called System Volume Information, which holds the information for System Restore points (on my computer a bunch of files with hexadecimal names and file sizes from 132 MB to over 3 GB). This directory is hidden unless you uncheck the box "Hide Protect Operating System Files" (accessed in the same dialog where you turn on the display of hidden files).

Even when this directory is made visible, access to it is denied and a "properties" inquiry says that it has a file size of 0 bytes. I added my user name to the list of those permitted to access the directory, and found that the contents of the directory are 43.6 GB, a fairly close match for the 42.4 GB that seem to be "missing".

The VISTA help system has the following information:

"How much hard disk space does System Restore require?

To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to make room for new ones.

System Restore will not run on hard disks smaller than 1 gigabyte (GB)."

This 15% limit matches the missing space on my hard drive and on Valour's hard drive (in both cases, about 13 or 14% of the hard drive space - the precise limit of 15% will never be reached due to the fact that the mix of of restore point files which is under 15% will never add up exactly to 15%). There is an option to turn off system restore (losing all the information in the restore points), but no option to require the system to use less than 15% of the hard drive space. This is a step backward from Windows XP, where the System Restore dialog page offered the option of the user specifying how much hard drive space was used for this function.