WinSxS Optimization

[damageboy]

Hi,

I was wondering (before I try to do it on my own) if someone has ever tried scanning

the vista installation for duplicates (with respect to WinSxS) and replace them with hard/soft links.

I know that there are tools such as NoClone that are capable of replacing dups with hard-links.

I also know that Vista has some support for Soft-Link, though most tools probably don't make use of that yet.

Has anyone ever tried pulling something like that to save up some installation space?

I find the "behaviour" of the WinSxS very annoying.

I do understand the "need" for having multiple versions of system (or any) dll for better software compatability,

but I honestly don't understand the need for duplicate files.

This adversely effects both diskspace and system performance IMO.

[damageboy]

I went ahead and did it.

I've created a small c# application, that can run inside Vista, that will scan files in:

c:\Program Files

c:\Program Files (x86)

c:\Windows

and look for files based on size / extension.

First, files are sorted by size,

Then they are tested to see if they are already hardlinked (seems Vista already uses hard-linking to some extent)

then compared byte-for-byte to makes sure the files are indeed the same

The last step is actaully replacing the files with hard-links.

I was able to shave off quite a bit of space in Vista after installation.

I will soon redo the vLite installation and redo the Winsxs run to see how it works in terms of stability etc.

[Tomorrow]

Any chance of sharing this small app of yours in the future?

[aviv00]

wow that nice

i tested how much files are dupe in windows server 2008 32bit

its 1.8GB kinda a lot if the installation size is: 5.4GB

and 64bit is 2.85GB of dupes about 1/3 of the install size that is 8.2GB

its would be lovely to have this app to save space

Edited August 19, 2008 by aviv00