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| Windows RT+Office RT takes up 12GB disk space |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-10-19 20:07:59 |
| Interesting little tidbit from the Reddit AMA session with Microsoft's Surface team. One Redditor wondered just how much disk space Windows RT takes up - in other words, if you buy the 32GB Surface RT tablet, how much space is left for your stuff? It turns out that while Windows 8 RT is considerably smaller than its Windows 7 x86 predecessor, it's still huge by mobile standards. |
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| RE[2]: Windows is notorious for this |
| By henderson101 on 2012-10-20 02:21:49 |
| Sometimes MSI will leave files to "aid uninstallation". IIRC, Borland did this with Delphi 2005. It was very annoying. Something to do with a catalogue of files installed or similar. I've also encountered at least one installer that did the same so that features could be "installed on the fly" without the original medial being present. Some installers are just crap though and son't clean up properly. |
 - Score: 2 |
| Will it handle cruft? No. |
| By benali72 on 2012-10-20 06:14:25 |
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I am left wondering how Windows RT handles the buildup of cruft. It'll handle it just like Windows always has... it won't! Every version of desktop Windows grows over time, and it's up to the user to find and run tools to fix it (if you rely on "Desktop Cleanup" you're system will be monstrous after Windows updates.) I wouldn't expect anything different with Win 8. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: It could have been better |
| By kompak on 2012-10-20 06:57:28 |
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> - 500MB Fonts You must have every font known to mankind. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[4]: Not quite true |
| By Brendan on 2012-10-20 08:55:01 |
|
Hi, As far as I know, all magnetic storage manufacturers have always used "dodgy numbers" - a combination of binary and decimal. A "dodgy MB" is 1024*1000 bytes, which is slightly larger than a real MB and slightly smaller than a real MiB. A "dodgy GB" is 1024*1000*1000 bytes, a "dodgy TB" is 1024*1000*1000*1000 bytes, etc. To add to the confusion, there's "unformatted capacity" (what the magnetic material is capable of), "low level formatted capacity" (what the magnetic material is capable of storing after it's been split up into sectors) and "formatted capacity" (how much free space you're left with after you've put the overhead of a file system on it). For a simple example; a "1.44 MB" floppy disk has an unformatted capacity of about 2 MB, a "low level formatted" capacity of exactly 1440 KiB, and (depending on which file system you use) this probably drops to about 1300 KiB of free/usable space once a file system is slapped on it. Of course everything else used for storage (RAM, file sizes, etc) is typically measured in binary sizes (e.g. 8 GiB of RAM); and there are still many morons that use decimal prefixes for binary sizes (e.g. 8 GB of RAM); so it's natural for people to assume a dodgy TB is a binary TiB and wonder why they've been ripped off. In this case the manufacturers like to pretend that file system overhead is the only cause, instead of admitting that their dodgy number scheme is a deliberate scam. Now; the difference between "dodgy" and "decimal" is constant (e.g. a decimal MB is 2.4% smaller than a dodgy MB, and a decimal PB is 2.4 smaller than a dodgy PB). However, the difference between "dodgy" and "binary" increases with scale (e.g. a dodgy MB is 2.4% smaller than a binary MiB, and a dodgy PB is 9.95% smaller than a binary PiB). This means that as hard drives get larger, the "dodgy sizes that people naturally assume are a binary sizes" scam grows. For example, by the time we get to yottabytes people will be getting 18% less disk space than they assume they're getting. The simplest solution is to hunt down these morons that use decimal prefixes for binary sizes and "re-educate them with extreme force". Once people get used to binary sizes they'll start assuming that a dodgy MB is a real MB; and then people will get more disk space than they assumed they would from hard disk manufacturers. TL;DR: The problem can be solved with violence! ;) - Brendan |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[4]: Not quite true |
| By swerfot on 2012-10-20 12:12:54 |
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Yeah, right... That one folder is a constant problem on computers with smaller drives (SSD for example). WinSXS consumes 7-8 GB of space on both my computers that have been installed quite recently. After some heavy usage and more apps installed, that folder grows up to 11-16 gigabytes! Edited 2012-10-20 12:21 UTC |
| - Score: -1 |
| Comment by v_bobok |
| By v_bobok on 2012-10-20 15:04:01 |
| Gotta love BeOS + GoBe Office |
| - Score: 6 |
| RE: Comment by v_bobok |
| By quackalist on 2012-10-20 19:04:17 |
| So damn true...think of the children, just say no. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[3]: Windows is notorious for this |
| By Moredhas on 2012-10-20 20:16:28 |
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Not just sometimes. Every MSI installer (yes, Microsoft Installer Installer...) you run is copied and stored inside your Windows folder with a cryptic name slapped on it, because the MSI file is also the uninstaller for a program. You run into problems when, even after uninstalling a program, that file doesn't disappear. As an aside, a problem I have to deal with at work on a semi-frequent basis occurs when some clever fool finds and decides to clean up this dozens-of-gigabytes folder of installers. Pretty much the only programs that seem to have a problem with that are iTunes and Quicktime, which apparently can't update without the old installer there to remove the old program. The solution is to use a Microsoft tool that removes all of the registry entries pertaining to iTunes and Quicktime, so Windows just no longer knows it's installed, and the new version's installer can run unimpeded. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: It could have been better |
| By segedunum on 2012-10-20 22:29:12 |
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> Of course 12GB is too much, but it's actually better than other choice: not having a Windows ARM version at all. Why? No one cares about Windows on ARM. People care about Windows purely because of the installed base of x86 specific applications. Beyond that there isn't much use for it. > That means Microsoft has not actually done much to reduce this clutter, except for porting the code to ARM (which is important by itself). I'm not convinced they can do much about it. Windows is an interconnected homogeneous system. You take it or leave it. |
| - Score: 0 |
| Comment by kurkosdr |
| By kurkosdr on 2012-10-21 00:29:21 |
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Android has it's own share of brain damage when it comes to storage. Storage space is divided into pieces (partitions) of fixed size (why not just have folders?). Did the partition the apps go to fill up? It doesn't matter if you have plenty of free space in the other partitions. No more apps for you. Did the /sdcard partition (where your user data go) filled up? You can't use any of those free GBs the other partitions have. So, OEMs have a balance of ying and yang to do, with the more space they give to apps, the less is available for photos, vids and the like. This is back to the dark ages of Unix partitions, even linux doesn't require a seperate partition for system anymore. It uses folders. My dad's Xperia U has only 4GB of it's 8GB available for user data *sigh* PS: Yes I know most apps can install most of their stuff to /sdcard, but Android's partitions are stiil brain damaged, and OEMs still give huge sizes to the other partitions, thinking they are doing the user a service. Edited 2012-10-21 00:36 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
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