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Windows Forum / Windows Vista / File Management / July 2006Redundant Application Data folder
In the Local Settings directory of my username I have have 12 Application Data folders. One inside the other and so on. Its about 12 gigs of what seems to be completely redundant data. There are other places that have reduntant Application Data folderes equaling similar amounts of space. Can I just delete all but the outermost ones? Seems pretty excessive. I might have something like 20-30 gigs of redundant files. Is this a bug or a new way of doing things?  Signature(¯`·._.·Ecat·._.·´¯) HP a1230n Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 1 Gig RAM Radeon X700 How are you viewing the space taken up and the directories within those "folders"? These aren't even folders, they're junctions (like symlinks in Linux), that directs one folder to another for compatibility reasons i.e. I think Application Data points to AppData and Local Settings to ProgramData. It's possible that it's a bug, after all it's a beta, especially if you choose to change the permissions to view them in explorer. However, it's even more likely that if you used a 3rd party application, it's just interpreting it incorrectly. > In the Local Settings directory of my username I have have 12 Application > Data folders. One inside the other and so on. Its about 12 gigs of what seems [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Is this a bug or a new way of doing things? To see the total size of the folders with folders inside them etc, I was using ExplorerXP which an Win Explorer type program. One of the great things about it is it can tell you the total size of directories, including when there are directories inside of them and so on. Not sure if that made sense. Never understood why windows coulnt do that. Its just math isnt it? Ive since realized that its not that acurate with Vista though. It reports some directories as being larger than my whole Vista partition. Its great on XP thougjh. Really handy. As a test I changed the name of the application data directory and it changed the names of all of the application data directories inside of itself. So I guess theyre not actually multiples but different states of themselves or something. Kind of like turning a tv camera back at the tv. Signature(¯`·._.·Ecat·._.·´¯) HP a1230n Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 1 Gig RAM Radeon X700 Your interpretation is correct. The Local Settings folder is a junction that points to the AppData\Local\ folder. Programs that aren't junction aware (such as the program you are using) do not realize that this redirection is taking place. Unfortunately, there is another junction inside the AppData\Local\ folder (the "Application Data" junction) that also points to AppData\Local\. This creates a hall-of-mirrors effect, as you have seen. :) - JB > To see the total size of the folders with folders inside them etc, I was > using ExplorerXP which an Win Explorer type program. One of the great things > about it is it can tell you the total size of directories, including when > there are directories inside of them and so on. Not sure if that made sense. > Never understood why windows coulnt do that. Its just math isnt it? I've never had any problems seeing the total size of a folder, just select it and press Alt+Enter or right-click and select Properties. If you mean that in explorer you don't see the size of the directory in the status-bar it's because it's slow. If you have a directory with many sub-directories/files each of those would have to be checked which would mean a lot of reads from disk and that can take quite a while. The alternative is to cache the information but that's a bit too much work for information that is relatively seldom of interest. -- Erik Wikström Hmm, never occured to me to check properties of a specific directory. And I knew that properties had that info too but I just never put two and two together, lol. ExplorerXP is still better for that in some cases like getting ready to dump a bunch of stuff onto a dvd etc. Because it has a colum for it so you can see all the results at once.that But it does take a little extra time while its addig up all the sub-directories. Not much though. On a related note, when selecting a directory that has for example 12 files totaling 100mb, you dont see that on the right of the status bar like you used to You have to select them first and then it will tell you. Is this a bug or an incomplete feature or maybe a new way of doing things now? Signature(¯`·._.·Ecat·._.·´¯) HP a1230n Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 1 Gig RAM Radeon X700 In Vista you just have to point to a folder to see its size. >> To see the total size of the folders with folders inside them etc, I was >> using ExplorerXP which an Win Explorer type program. One of the great [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > -- > Erik Wikström Well it doesnt work that way for me. ) : Heres how my status bar looks when pointing a folder: 20 items (Disk free space: 2.96 GB) Computer But it should look like this: 20 items (Disk free space: 2.96 GB) 7.25 MB Computer I have to actually select the files on the right side of Explorer to see their total. Oh well. Signature(¯`·._.·Ecat·._.·´¯) HP a1230n Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 1 Gig RAM Radeon X700 > In Vista you just have to point to a folder to see its size. > Well it doesnt work that way for me. ) : > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I have to actually select the files on the right side of Explorer to see > their total. Alan was talking about the tool-tip box that comes up if you hover the mouse over a folder, which is a feature that was in XP too, I'd just forgotten about it. The statusbar only shows info for selected objects. -- Erik Wikström |
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