Moving Winxsx

[dennisc72]

I'm wondering how to MOVE the Winsxs folder to another drive. I recently installed a 32 GB SSD which is quite small but should be enough for Windows and several applications. It would be for sure if it didn't have 6.2 GB of JUNK on it! From what I understand this is somehow necessary for Windows but Windows doesn't constantly access it so it shouldn't need to be on a fast drive. I've seen several references to the winsxs folder here but none on moving it. I've seen references to moving it on other sites but I'm not sure how reliable they are.

 

[pjmelect]

The folder winsxs is not as large as Explorer reports it as nearly every file in the WinSxS directory is a “hard link” to the physical files elsewhere on the system—meaning that the files are not actually in this directory. For instance in the WinSxS there might be a file called fred.dll that takes up >700K however what’s being reported is a hard link to the actual file that lives in the Windows\System32, and it will be counted twice (or more) when simply looking at the individual directories from Windows Explorer.
So don’t try to move or delete it as the folder is needed for compatibility for older programs that need older versions of a DLL and removing this folder will cause random behaviour of some programs.

 

[dennisc72]

So does that mean my 32 GB drive will hold 40+ GB of data, assuming this folder is 8+ or 9+ GB?? Why doesn't it show shortcuts if that's what they are?

 

[pjmelect]

If you do the properties of the disk then it will show the correct amount of space used but if you do the properties of the individual folders you will find that they do not add up. Note the system volume folder will be shown as zero bytes but is in fact very large.