Compact Your Windows 7 Installation Disc
You'll notice that when you install Windows 7, you are not presented with any check boxes to opt out of installing anything you may not need, such as language packs, accessories, bundled games, etc. which all add up to a significant amount of disk space once installed. Fear not! There is a tool called
RT Seven Lite that is able to do all this and more. It works directly on the Windows 7 installation files (before you have installed Windows) to customise just about every aspect of the process, including slipstreaming Service Packs and Hotfixes, as well as pre-tweaking Windows and automatically installing applications. Once it has done its thing (which takes a while) it spits out an ISO file (hopefully greatly reduced in size compared with the original disc), which you can then burn to DVD or create a bootable USB stick to use as your very own customized installation disc.
Disable the Pagefile
By default, the Windows Pagefile (pagefile.sys hidden in the operating system partition's root directory) is set to a size of 1.5x the amount of Physical Memory (RAM) installed in your computer. The Pagefile really only comes into significant use when you are running low on memory, so I am of the opinion that the more memory you have, the less of a Pagefile you require. In fact, on my 16 GB rig, I tend to keep it disabled altogether. Please note that it is possible to relocate the Pagefile to a completely different hard drive, i.e. one that isn't as space-critical as an SSD, although if you do move it to a standard magnetic hard disk, then you will of course experience disk thrashing and reduced performance when it is in use. Also note that if you set the Pagefile below a certain threshold, then no memory dump will take place, which can be useful for diagnosing problems when a dreaded blue-screen event occurs.
To disable or modify the size / location of the Pagefile, open Control Panel and then System. Now select Advanced System Settings, then Performance Settings. Choose the Advanced tab then the Change... button. Ensure the “Automatically Manage Paging File for All Drives” checkbox is unchecked, then set “No paging file” for each drive in turn if you have plenty of RAM. Alternatively you can resize it if you're not too bothered about the wear it may cause to your SSD (but you don't want it to take up as much space), or set it to a different drive altogether.
Disable Hibernation
The Windows Hibernation file (hiberfil.sys hidden in the operating system partition's root directory) takes up as much space as 75% of the RAM installed in your computer. The reason for this is that when you enter Hibernation power saving mode, the memory contents are dumped into this file for later retrieval when you wake your computer. With 12 and 16 GB of RAM becoming more and more common, the occupied space that can be potentially freed becomes significant for SSDs, amounting to 2 or 3 full-sized games. I have searched for ways of moving this file, but it seems impossible to relocate it anywhere away from the system boot partition other than removing it altogether.
To disable Hibernation, launch a command prompt with administrator privileges and enter “powercfg.exe /hibernate off”.
Disable System Protection
As a lot of you may know, System Protection (or System Restore as it used to be known) creates safe points to return to if system files or the registry become corrupt, infected by viruses / malware or incorrectly configured. However, this feature eats up disk space based on a percentage of the total capacity of each drive. If you feel you have adequate protection in the form of a Firewall, Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware and your own common sense then you may want to reclaim this space by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting properties, then System Protection. Set the slider on the appropriate drive to a lower value or disable System Protection altogether.
Set Temp Directories, Scratch Disks
Since SSDs have limited write cycles, it doesn't make sense to continually bombard them with temporary files when it may be just as effective to have them working off your normal hard drives. To change your Windows temp directories, open Control Panel and then System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables. Set both temp directories to something other than the SSD if you're not too concerned about the performance of these operations. Additionally, applications that have their own temp file or scratch disk locations can usually be configured.
Migrate Junk
It goes without saying that it is best to install low-priority applications and games to a higher-capacity, cheaper drive if they are unlikely to benefit greatly from the performance advantages of an SSD. A lot of applications remain in memory and so the benefits quickly dry up after loading them each session. The same can be said of lightweight games such as platformers, puzzle, arcade, emulation, sports simulators and all those classic games that don't require a lot of processing power.
Now, what to do with that bulky STEAM directory?
STEAM does start up noticeably quicker if run from an SSD, however you're unlikely to comfortably accommodate the vast amount of data that the entire STEAM directory takes up unless you have a 160 - 256 GB+ SSD. So, what if you wanted to, say, keep STEAM and some important games on your SSD but move less important STEAM games to another drive? Wouldn't STEAM complain that it couldn't find the lower-priority games when you try to launch them? The solution is to virtually link directories and files by creating a “Symbolic Link” or “Junction” from the source location (slower hard drive) to the destination (the SSD) so that STEAM doesn't realise that the files aren't in the right place. How is this accomplished? Without the aid of a 3rd party tool, it is actually pretty complicated as you need to get down and dirty with the command line interface.
Thankfully, there exists a very handy utility called
Link Shell Extension, which simplifies the process by placing the necessary commands in the Windows contextual menu (right click). Once you have installed LSE and you right-click on files and folders within Windows Explorer, there will be a new option “pick link source”. The physical files themselves can reside on whichever drive or directory you choose, but you need to drop symlinks where they are expected to be by the applications they depend on. Do this by right-clicking in the destination directory and selecting “Drop As... > Symbolic Link” -or- “Junction”. Junctions are compatible with previous versions of Windows, but only work with directories. Symbolic Links work with both files and folders.
Most STEAM games are stored in “Steam\steamapps\common” so that is where you will be moving low-priority games away from, and later dropping them back in as Symbolic Links once they have finished transferring.
The same principle can be used to move any of your game assets such as video, for instance, which is normally streamed and doesn't require instant access times and transfer rates of 250 MB/s or more. FMV can take up a huge amount of space, depending on the game, so it is really beneficial to move them off your SSD onto a slower drive, and then symlink them back to the SSD.
Examples:
Space saved by moving video from various games off SSD onto hard drive and symlinking them back.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood “\Videos” folder: 542 MB
Civilization V “Opening Movies” .wmv files from the root folder: 553 MB
Dirt 3 “\video” folder: 419 MB
Divinity II – Dragon Knight Saga “\video” folder: 1.39 GB
Dragon Age: Origins “\packages\core\data\movies” and “\modules\single player\data\movies” folders: 2.69 GB
Duke Nukem Forever “\Movies” folder: 1.08 GB
F1 2010 “\video” folder: 597 MB
Fallout 3 GOTY “\Videos” folder: 1 GB
Mirror's Edge “\TdGame\Movies” folder: 959 MB
Need for Speed: Shift “\Movies” folder: 916 MB
Need for Speed: Shift 2 – Unleashed “\FEMovies” and “\Movies” folder: 1.12 GB
The Witcher 2 “\CookedPC\movies” folder: 3.35 GB
Total War – Shogun 2 “\data\movies.pack” and “\data\movies2.pack” files: 5.18 GB
X3 Terran Conflict “\mov” folder: 3.37 GB
Total space reclaimed for these games: 23.166 GB
You can also use this method to create multiple EVE (or any MMO) clients so that technically there is only one copy of the client on your SSD, but you can run multiple instances of it and have separate settings folders in your “Users\*\AppData\Local\CCP\EVE” directory. Simply drop as many symlinks as you need after picking the client's root folder as the Link Source, rename them to whatever you prefer, such as “EVE Client 2” etc., and then create shortcuts of EVE's executable from within each folder to your desktop or dock bars.
Most games also come with DirectX installation files and other support drivers / applications, which could reside in a folder named “redist”, example: Total War – Shogun 2's “redist” folder: 113 MB can be safely deleted.
