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Does anyone know exactly WTF happened after XP to make the disk space requirements balloon so much, so fast? I know they started including more drivers, but, I

Does anyone know exactly WTF happened after XP to make the disk space requirements balloon so much, so fast? I know they started including more drivers, but, I mean, so does Linux and you can go pretty nuts with driver modules there and still not move the needle much on disk space requirements. Certainly not to the tune of gigabytes. New features definitely don't seem to justify the increase. Even supporting both 32 and 64 bit, that still doesn't come close to justifying it. Combine Win2k and Win98, double that for no real reason, double it again for 32 and 64 bit, and you still don't touch Win7.

sebazzz 7y ago
From Vista onwards 256x256 icons are supported and probably included. This might be a reason. Perhaps also more facilities for system recovery.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Think about how many icons it would take to use up say 10GB. 256 x 256 x 3 bytes (24-bit color uncompressed) is ~200K. That's 50,000 icons. So you've only moved the question to why would Windows need 50,000 icons in raw format.
  - sebazzz 7y ago
    Icon files are uncompressed bitmaps, and in good tradition Windows features 32-bit and 16-bit versions. And Windows contains a lot of icons, just look at shell32.dll or imageres.dll for instance. Still, it is probably part of the reason.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I've never developed a "real" application for Windows, so I didn't know this off the top of my head, but it appears that compressed PNG format has been supported for icons since Vista, which came out in like 2007. See: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=12473 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=12473
Avery3R 7y ago
Vista was basically a massive rewrite of a bunch of components, and the devs had more hw resources at their disposal when they did it. One place I can think of taking up more disk space is all of the theme ing and icons. Imagine how many different images are included in windows, those need to be high-res for hidpi now.
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
For one thing, Vista onwards includes the entire system on the hard drive, including optional drivers, language packs, features, etc, so you never get the dreaded “Please insert Windows setup disc” prompt. This also makes Windows setup a bit faster as it can for the most part just install one big disk image. Another factor is 64-bit Windows, which became mainstream with Vista. 64-bit installs include both 64-bit and 32-bit system libraries, so it takes significantly more disk space. This is still the case with Windows 10, which might explain why some low-end devices still have 32-bit pre-installed.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  It would be interesting to compare 64-bit XP.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Well, the difference is only like 20%, so 64-bit XP would definitely be much smaller than even 32-bit Vista.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chungy 7y ago
For compatibility purposes, WinSxS basically contains every version of every DLL ever shipped with Windows from 95 to present day.
- andai 7y ago
  If only they also included the old UIs...
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    You can make Win7 look like Win95 by turning off all eye candy. Still usable today if that's your thing.
    - Avery3R 7y ago
      Windows 7 is about to be EOL'd. You can enable the classic theme on 10 with some security descriptor shenanigans http://winclassic.boards.net/thread/413/reversibly-enable-disable-classic-powershell http://winclassic.boards.net/thread/413/reversibly-enable-di...
      - andai 7y ago
        Do/have you use(d) this? Any screencaps? :) No classic theme was one of the deal breakers from me going from 7 to 10. Worth mentioning here that XP support only really ended last April (POSReady). 7 is supported at least 3 more years: > Windows 7 ESU include security updates for critical and important issues as defined by Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) for a maximum of three years after January 14, 2020. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4527878/faq-about-extended-security-updates-for-windows-7 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4527878/faq-about-e... But MS really doesn't want you to use Windows 7, unless you are an "IT Professional" :)
- timbatron 7y ago
  That's demonstrably not true. There are a few specific DLLs that have separate versions shipped in the same OS build (like comctl32), but 99% of DLLs have only x86/x64 versions.
TylerE 7y ago
I imagine Unicode and i18n haven't helped matters.
DanBC 7y ago
Has anyone mentioned 1) recovery partitions 2) Rollback to previous versions data 3) weird things that WIMBoot (Win 8.x) did that meant that any updates were stored outside the compressed image. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2a59b58d-9664-4783-a2af-889ce6200416/update-wimboot-installation?forum=w8itproinstall https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2a59b58d-9...

sebazzz 7y ago

From Vista onwards 256x256 icons are supported and probably included. This might be a reason. Perhaps also more facilities for system recovery.

perl4ever 7y ago
Think about how many icons it would take to use up say 10GB. 256 x 256 x 3 bytes (24-bit color uncompressed) is ~200K. That's 50,000 icons. So you've only moved the question to why would Windows need 50,000 icons in raw format.
- sebazzz 7y ago
  Icon files are uncompressed bitmaps, and in good tradition Windows features 32-bit and 16-bit versions. And Windows contains a lot of icons, just look at shell32.dll or imageres.dll for instance. Still, it is probably part of the reason.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I've never developed a "real" application for Windows, so I didn't know this off the top of my head, but it appears that compressed PNG format has been supported for icons since Vista, which came out in like 2007. See: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=12473 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=12473

Avery3R 7y ago

Vista was basically a massive rewrite of a bunch of components, and the devs had more hw resources at their disposal when they did it. One place I can think of taking up more disk space is all of the theme ing and icons. Imagine how many different images are included in windows, those need to be high-res for hidpi now.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

For one thing, Vista onwards includes the entire system on the hard drive, including optional drivers, language packs, features, etc, so you never get the dreaded “Please insert Windows setup disc” prompt. This also makes Windows setup a bit faster as it can for the most part just install one big disk image. Another factor is 64-bit Windows, which became mainstream with Vista. 64-bit installs include both 64-bit and 32-bit system libraries, so it takes significantly more disk space. This is still the case with Windows 10, which might explain why some low-end devices still have 32-bit pre-installed.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
It would be interesting to compare 64-bit XP.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Well, the difference is only like 20%, so 64-bit XP would definitely be much smaller than even 32-bit Vista.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chungy 7y ago

For compatibility purposes, WinSxS basically contains every version of every DLL ever shipped with Windows from 95 to present day.

andai 7y ago
If only they also included the old UIs...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  You can make Win7 look like Win95 by turning off all eye candy. Still usable today if that's your thing.
  - Avery3R 7y ago
    Windows 7 is about to be EOL'd. You can enable the classic theme on 10 with some security descriptor shenanigans http://winclassic.boards.net/thread/413/reversibly-enable-disable-classic-powershell http://winclassic.boards.net/thread/413/reversibly-enable-di...
    - andai 7y ago
      Do/have you use(d) this? Any screencaps? :) No classic theme was one of the deal breakers from me going from 7 to 10. Worth mentioning here that XP support only really ended last April (POSReady). 7 is supported at least 3 more years: > Windows 7 ESU include security updates for critical and important issues as defined by Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) for a maximum of three years after January 14, 2020. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4527878/faq-about-extended-security-updates-for-windows-7 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4527878/faq-about-e... But MS really doesn't want you to use Windows 7, unless you are an "IT Professional" :)
timbatron 7y ago
That's demonstrably not true. There are a few specific DLLs that have separate versions shipped in the same OS build (like comctl32), but 99% of DLLs have only x86/x64 versions.

TylerE 7y ago

I imagine Unicode and i18n haven't helped matters.

DanBC 7y ago

Has anyone mentioned 1) recovery partitions 2) Rollback to previous versions data 3) weird things that WIMBoot (Win 8.x) did that meant that any updates were stored outside the compressed image. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2a59b58d-9664-4783-a2af-889ce6200416/update-wimboot-installation?forum=w8itproinstall https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2a59b58d-9...