SOLVED why is docs & settings folder so big ??

[RareBear]

why have I got a 33gb "Documents & settings file" ??


Did a clean install of Win 7 Pro x64 on my sig (this) computer (was XP Pro x64) and spent the last 3 days loading programs and fine tuning it. After the 1st day and ultimate frustration w/ the "permissions' fiasco & untold hrs on google searching and appling "fixes", I broke down and loaded Cisco's Network Magic. It helped more than most "fixes". I can see where MS spent a fortune protecting people from themselves. What a waste. This computer will download 80-100gb of data a day, in 30-80 folders which are then edited, compared, deleted & moved back and forth between this computer and my XP Pro x64 based backup computer. Win 7 don't like that kind of usage. And the backup computer is crunching #'s and trying to access data on this computer at the same time. Got it set up where it at least "kind'a works" and then was shocked last night when I saw the amount of space this "clean install" was taking up !! pasted my usage in below.


"C" Drive shown as "used" 134,467,600,384

recycle bin (8,192)
boot (14,675,968)
documents & settings (no info) 0
intel (86,016)
Program files (168,255,488)
Program Files (x86) (19,693,977,600)
Program Data (741,212,160)
Recovery (171,565,056)
System volume information (18,550,329,344)
Users (450,256,896)
Windows (46,781,839,736)
bootmgt (384,000)
bootsect.bak (8,192)
hiberfil.sys (6,441,009,152)
pagefile.sys (8,600,420,352)
xrjmns.tce (1,024)


Documents & settings has to be: 32,853,571,208


C:\Windows\CSC\V2.0.6\namespace\RAREBREED 32,095,825,920


More google and figured out that the windows "csc" folder was saving files I was transferring from the backup computer as "offline". Fixed that, and deleted most of the the files. There are still 4 it won't let me delete. That cleaned up 32gb. Found some other "temp" files and cleaned up another 5gb. Turned off the pagefile and saved another 8gb. So now it's down to the "documents and settings" folder. From what i've read, the files that used to be in here under XP are now under "users" and for the most part appear to be. If this folder is just supposed to be a "junction point", why is it taking up 33gb??!! It scares me when MS won't let me look inside a bunch of these folders. If I screw it up, that's MY problem, NOT theirs.

I like the speed of Win 7. File transfers appear faster and it's much faster handling programs, especially 32 bit programs.And maybe MS will issue a one click "fix" to turn off all that stupid "permissions" stuff. Be a good OS then.

So anybody know why have I got a 33gb "Documents & settings file" ?? and how to fix it ??

Thanks-

 

[mattweed9]

Um, whats all the downloading for just wondering?

As for the permissions, you could of turned that off while you where loading files you knew were okay.

What do you mean fixes? What was broken?

As for the documents and settings folder, 33 gig's is a lot of porn. And what do you mean you can't look inside some of the folders? You don't have permissions?

 

[clifford_cooley]

Hi RareBear

"Documents and Settings" is a link to the Users folder, this is why it does not show a size.

 

[RareBear]

why have I got a 33gb "Documents & settings file" ??


Did a clean install of Win 7 Pro x64 on my sig (this) computer (was XP Pro x64) and spent the last 3 days loading programs and fine tuning it. After the 1st day and ultimate frustration w/ the "permissions' fiasco & untold hrs on google searching and appling "fixes", I broke down and loaded Cisco's Network Magic. It helped more than most "fixes". I can see where MS spent a fortune protecting people from themselves. What a waste. This computer will download 80-100gb of data a day, in 30-80 folders which are then edited, compared, deleted & moved back and forth between this computer and my XP Pro x64 based backup computer. Win 7 don't like that kind of usage. And the backup computer is crunching #'s and trying to access data on this computer at the same time. Got it set up where it at least "kind'a works" and then was shocked last night when I saw the amount of space this "clean install" was taking up !! pasted my usage in below.


"C" Drive shown as "used" 134,467,600,384

recycle bin (8,192)
boot (14,675,968)
documents & settings (no info) 0
intel (86,016)
Program files (168,255,488)
Program Files (x86) (19,693,977,600)
Program Data (741,212,160)
Recovery (171,565,056)
System volume information (18,550,329,344)
Users (450,256,896)
Windows (46,781,839,736)
bootmgt (384,000)
bootsect.bak (8,192)
hiberfil.sys (6,441,009,152)
pagefile.sys (8,600,420,352)
xrjmns.tce (1,024)


Documents & settings has to be: 32,853,571,208


C:\Windows\CSC\V2.0.6\namespace\RAREBREED 32,095,825,920


More google and figured out that the windows "csc" folder was saving files I was transferring from the backup computer as "offline". Fixed that, and deleted most of the the files. There are still 4 it won't let me delete. That cleaned up 32gb. Found some other "temp" files and cleaned up another 5gb. Turned off the pagefile and saved another 8gb. So now it's down to the "documents and settings" folder. From what i've read, the files that used to be in here under XP are now under "users" and for the most part appear to be. If this folder is just supposed to be a "junction point", why is it taking up 33gb??!! It scares me when MS won't let me look inside a bunch of these folders. If I screw it up, that's MY problem, NOT theirs.

I like the speed of Win 7. File transfers appear faster and it's much faster handling programs, especially 32 bit programs.And maybe MS will issue a one click "fix" to turn off all that stupid "permissions" stuff. Be a good OS then.

So anybody know why have I got a 33gb "Documents & settings file" ?? and how to fix it ??

Thanks-

I do a lot of engineering, conparartive analysis, and chaos theory studies. It requires lots of data from lots of different places. Favorite is intake/exhaust and cylinder head flow & flame front propagation studies. I figure out how to make horsepower @ very low bsfc's. All the storage capacity represents all the files & programs I've stored & used since my 1st Apple in 1981. Hell, I still keep a DOS based computer on line to run some old "calc" & "visi-calc" based programs I wrote in those days just for the hell of it. There's over 6 million files stored across 7.5 TERAbytes of storage on my 2 computers. And there ain't no "porn" in any of it. Ain't got time for it at my age (65).



Permissions have been "turned off" for everything. But I still can't access certain folders. What's frustrating is when a program running in the background on my XP x64 "backup" computer queries this Win 7 x64 computer for data, and that irritating "you do not have permission" flag jumps up and effectively "stops" the program from running. I got better things to do than sit in front of this thing all day and wait to figure out if a program is going to complete.

 

[mattweed9]

Well, if all else fails, stick with what you know works man. I know if I was having so many issues, I'd go back to XP.

 

[RareBear]

Hi RareBear

"Documents and Settings" is a link to the Users folder, this is why it does not show a size.

If it's just a "link", why is it almost 14 GIGAbit ? Did another review of the "c" (boot drive) after I cleaned up a bunch of stuff. It's attached, and the missing 14 gb of data has to be in that folder.

 

[clifford_cooley]

See for yourself what I am basing that comment on

 

[RareBear]

found the way to take easy and total control of windows 7 and get rid of the dumb "permissions" pop-ups @ the same time.

and there is 14gb in that folder-

going to figure out how to make this a useful os yet

sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

 

[catilley1092]

Don't go back to XP, you'll love Windows 7! It's an excellent OS and once you are setup, you'll enjoy it. It was easier for me to learn than XP Pro & Win 2K Pro. Looking at your computer specs, you're ready to move up.

 

[davehc]

found the way to take easy and total control of windows 7 and get rid of the dumb "permissions" pop-ups @ the same time.

and there is 14gb in that folder-

going to figure out how to make this a useful os yet

sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

If you gain access to the Documents and Settings folder, and start to use it, you are going to have irreversible problems. The most significant is duplication of files and folders. On the default views, you should not even be able to see the folder, which was how it was intended. With todays hard disk sizes, space available is rarely a problem, but I can see that you possibly have a use for a great deal!

It is known as a junction folder and was also used in Windows Vista. It is there for compatibilty use with older programs, which, during the install, would be looking for those old names. As soon as Windows detects that the folder is being accessed by such an install, it redirects it to the appropriate new folder, usual under "users".
If you are interested, you can read a lot more here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb968829(VS.85).aspx

 

[Kougar]

Permissions have been "turned off" for everything. But I still can't access certain folders. What's frustrating is when a program running in the background on my XP x64 "backup" computer queries this Win 7 x64 computer for data, and that irritating "you do not have permission" flag jumps up and effectively "stops" the program from running. I got better things to do than sit in front of this thing all day and wait to figure out if a program is going to complete.

It almost sounds like you may have pointed the programs to use a directory that doesn't exist. Clifford is quite correct in that many of the "folders" you see are only links, this is to preserve legacy programs and keep them from breaking.

"Documents & Settings" is just a link to C:\Users\USERNAME\ for example... but the only way to access it is to navigate through C:\Users\USERNAME\.

For XP users this would be confusing, but these changes in the file system structure were first implemented with Vista.

It gets even more complicated, but if you want to wrap your head around it give this a read for a nice primer: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/11/19/disk-space.aspx