Make Windows 7 as small as possible?

Psycho Sonny · 12 Jun 2014 at 17:40

Recently got a 30GB SSD for cheap to replace my ageing velociraptor.

So I need to keep the OS as small as possible in order for me to get have some spare space for it to work efficiently. I will then use a 500 GB drive as storage and to install large programs onto, etc.

I have disabled hibernation, moved the paging file onto the second hard drive. Disabled superfetch as well as some windows features I wont be using.

Is there anything else I can do? Using about 16GB with 12GB free.

Installed all the updates, etc. As well as all the drivers and some essential software like chrome, winrar, etc.

Orcvader · 12 Jun 2014 at 17:54

Have you ran Disk Cleanup -> Cleanup system files? It uninstalled uneeded outdated updates which can help shrink the size. Gave me back 7gb of space when the feature first became avaliable.

Psycho Sonny · 12 Jun 2014 at 18:21

Yup got a few GB back nothing as bad as 7GB

darael · 13 Jun 2014 at 00:40

Disabled System Restore?

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jun 2014 at 01:22

darael said:
Disabled System Restore?

Yup, disabled that as well as indexing.

Hibernation seems to have had the biggest gain (however much RAM you have it reserves this amount on your hard drive), I have 8GB so that freed up the most so far.

Everyone should do that tbh especially if you have 16GB of RAM, etc.

Tute · 13 Jun 2014 at 07:09

Go to Turn Windows Features On and Off and remove what you don't need from there?

Destination · 13 Jun 2014 at 13:31

Move the location of the windows user profile folders to a secomndary drive,

darael · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:05

Check C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download - this is where Windows Updates are downloaded to.

kitfit1 · 16 Jun 2014 at 22:18

Hikari Kisugi said:
Move the location of the windows user profile folders to a secomndary drive,

This OP is asking for good solid advice, not something as stupid as to strip his OS of the ability to install any MS updates. MS, if you can be bothered to read MS's own documentation, specifically advises against doing this unless in a test environment. If you move the user profile folders to another drive, the OS will not be able to perform any OS updates, that includes updating from Win7 to Win8 for instance. If you are going to offer "advice", make shure you know what you are talking about :rolleyes:

Subliminal Aura · 16 Jun 2014 at 22:23

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Psycho Sonny · 16 Jun 2014 at 22:44

been having a lot of issues since I installed so I have been trying different things.

ssd life says the ssd is fine, anyone recommend any software to check an ssd more thoroughly?

i have re-installed windows 7 about 20+ times no joke and the main culprit i managed to narrow it down to was my motherboards chipset drivers, since not installing them it's been running a lot smoother.

but every now and again it will freeze for sometimes a minute or so.

the only changes i've mad to windows is, make the paging file smaller (1GB) I have 8GB of RAM. disabled hybernation, superfetch and system restore.

not touched anything else. I'm starting to think the SSD i bought off MM is dodgy, had zero issues before with the raptor and i just swapped them out using a hot swap bay.

i may try swapping back to the raptor and see if it stops the freezing and the BSOD's stop after i stopped installing the chipset drivers every time i re-installed windows.

andy_mk3 · 16 Jun 2014 at 22:48

It's probably not the answer you're looking for, but a 60/120GB SSD will solve all your headaches! A used one can be picked up very very cheap now, even new ones have some cracking deals from time to time.

Tute · 17 Jun 2014 at 01:30

I was always under the impression that the swap file should be left on automatic.

If you really want to get the install size down you could do your own custom nlite W7 disk?

KIA · 17 Jun 2014 at 10:00

Psycho Sonny said:
but every now and again it will freeze for sometimes a minute or so.

Is there an SSD firmware update available?

Psycho Sonny · 17 Jun 2014 at 12:37

KIA said:
Is there an SSD firmware update available?

i did that as soon as I got the drive.

Anyway as an update to this issue I seem to have found the problem.

It's a dodgy sata cable, bare in mind my pc has worked fine for several years but a clean install kept on bringing up issues, BSOD's which were random.

that's because a clean install involves a lot of writing to the hard drive and on a normal system usually not a writing is done so the cable intermittently works and i think the system caches/buffers all the requests until they come back okay.

basically swapping a 50p cable would have prevented me from going insane.

well I think it's the cable anyway been running a lot smoother since i swapped the hard drive to the second bay which uses a different sata cable and sata port.

no longer plugging a drive into the first bay which uses the first port/cable.

so i'll need to open the pc up one day and remove the offending cable and replace with a new one.

linktoinsanity · 17 Jun 2014 at 13:13

kitfit1 said:
This OP is asking for good solid advice, not something as stupid as to strip his OS of the ability to install any MS updates. MS, if you can be bothered to read MS's own documentation, specifically advises against doing this unless in a test environment. If you move the user profile folders to another drive, the OS will not be able to perform any OS updates, that includes updating from Win7 to Win8 for instance. If you are going to offer "advice", make shure you know what you are talking about

I've done some reading on this and it appears only to affect Windows 8, not Windows 7 and as the OP is asking about Windows 7 there is no need for the end part of your paragraph. The only time it may affect him is if he decides to upgrade to Windows 8.1 in the future.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/dont-move-your-windows-user-profiles-folder-to-another-drive-7000022142/

kitfit1 · 17 Jun 2014 at 21:15

linktoinsanity said:
I've done some reading on this and it appears only to affect Windows 8, not Windows 7 and as the OP is asking about Windows 7 there is no need for the end part of your paragraph. The only time it may affect him is if he decides to upgrade to Windows 8.1 in the future.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/dont-move-your-windows-user-profiles-folder-to-another-drive-7000022142/

I can see where you are coming from, based on your link. But it's not as simple as all the other results you would have a got by "googling" the same question would suggest either. Just moving the user files to another drive does not work 100% in either XP, Vista or Win7 and defo does not work at all in Win8. There are at least 3 reg values that have to be altered as well and even these HAVE to be done during the install process, in admin mode before ANY user accounts are created. Maybe i was a bit harsh........................but at the end of the day, simply moving The User files does not work as peeps think, never has done, defo dosn't work at all in win8 (which is why you cant upgrade from 7 to 8 if you have moved them) and poses a security risk in Win7 because the OS won't update.