Windows 8 Windows folder takes 38GB but all folders inside it take only 19GB (show hidden folders enabled).

StefanStojkovski

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Jan 25, 2014
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Skopje
I made my C partition 100GB thinking that i wouldn't need more than that for my windows and users folder, but it turns out that most of the time i am struggling to keep the 10% needed for the windows to function properly. Now while my User folder takes 18GB which is reasonable my Windows folder takes 39GB. I wanted to see which folders or files inside take the most so i opened it and checked the properties of all folders, a few folders at a time. It showed that WinSxS takes 6.5GB, all the other folders take 12GB and the other files take just a few MB. I then checked to see whether "show hidden folders" was enabled and it was, though there wasn't any transparent folder icon immediately in the Windows folder. Now, there must be something that takes that space, so does anyone knows what it might be? I wanted to search the internet on how to decrease the size of the windows folder if possible, but now that i have noticed this i would like to know what takes that space first.
 
Can you see the hibernation file and the pagefile - they consume huge amounts of space.
I couldn't see them but i searched the internet and found that i should disable "hide protected operating system files" in the folder options menu in order to see .sys and other protected files. I see the hibersfil.sys which takes 4GB and the swapfile.sys only 250MB (this is probably the page file) but they aren't the issue. Now in the Windows folder, there appeared a hidden folder called Installer which takes the missing 19GB. Next, i will search the internet about this folder and see whether i can somehow reduce it's size.
 
You can remove the hiberfil.sys file by turning hibernation off (provided you choose not to use it). Run a command prompt as administrator and enter:

powercfg –h off

The Installer file does and will continue to grow in size. Unfortunately you are likely to have problems if you delete it. The files in there will be required if and when you need to reinstall/uninstall any program to which the file relates. If you desperately need the space you may transfer the Installer folder to an external storage then replace it if and when it is needed.
 
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