Windows 7 consuming 20GB ... why?

[oli356]

My 80GB SSD somehow only has 2 GB available. I install my applications on there but program files folders are only taking up 8GB.
Winsxs says 8.

My appdata is 15GB :s (7GB of that was iPhone/iPad backups what I have deleted..)

 

[Dj_Jestar]

It's not a fault as such, more a sacrifice for application compatibility. They should have tackled the issue in another way imo.

It is a fault when they have the option of using symlinks instead of hardlinks, which would negate this problem entirely.

Windows 8 has a different solution.

 

[Mr Krugga]

Removed:

1) pagefile (reduced to 512GB)
2) hibernation file
3) restore files
4) recycle bin
5) other bloat

17.4GB, still.