4 ms·

How Windows 10 achieves its compact footprint

24 points by amitmittal1993 12y ago

killercup 12y ago
tl;dr "[...] Windows 10 leverages an efficient compression algorithm to compress system files. [...] removed the requirement for a separate recovery image."
- occam65 12y ago
  In addition, on an example 64-bit installation, 6.6GB are freed by the new compression algorithm and the removal of the recovery image. As illustrated here: http://az648995.vo.msecnd.net/win/2015/03/1a.png http://az648995.vo.msecnd.net/win/2015/03/1a.png
vmarsy 12y ago
We are also redesigning Windows’ Refresh and Reset functionalities to no longer use a separate recovery image (often preinstalled by manufacturers today) in order to bring Windows devices back to a pristine state If this mean that you will be able to go to BestBuy, and do a recovery to a pure Windows 10, blotware-less, without any .iso but just following a few steps, it seems even more interesting than a compact footprint!
demarq 12y ago
Keep the good news rolling in!
ocdtrekkie 12y ago
It sounds to me like they're just disallowing the OEM practice of recovery partitions, in favor of telling you to create restore media, like the old days, lol. Factory reset without recovery media isn't going to work if your runtime files have been infected and such.
kraken2 12y ago
MS-DOS version (1993): "DriveSpace (initially known as DoubleSpace) is a disk compression utility supplied with MS-DOS starting from version 6.0. The purpose of DriveSpace is to increase the amount of data the user could store on disks, by transparently compressing and decompressing data on-the-fly. It is primarily intended for use with hard drives, but use for floppy disks is also supported. Microsoft's decision to develop DoubleSpace and add it to MS-DOS was probably influenced by the fact that DOS-based operating systems from other manufacturers (IBM and Novell) had started including disk compression software in their products.[citation needed] Instead of developing its own product from scratch, Microsoft licensed the technology for the DoubleDisk product developed by Vertisoft and adapted it to become DoubleSpace. For instance, the loading of the driver controlling the compression/decompression (DBLSPACE.BIN) became more deeply integrated into the operating system (being loaded even before the CONFIG.SYS file)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace Windows 8 version (2014): "WIMBoot can significantly reduce the amount of space used by Windows files. This helps you provide more free space to users, and helps you manufacture Windows on PCs with smaller drives." https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn594399.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn594399.aspx
cyberjunkie 12y ago
This was critical in order to make these affordable 2-in-1, tablet-like laptops more usable. Most of them come with 16 or 32GB MMC storage and every gigabyte counts. Good on you, Microsoft. It helps the rest of us too!

tl;dr "[...] Windows 10 leverages an efficient compression algorithm to compress system files. [...] removed the requirement for a separate recovery image."

occam65 12y ago
In addition, on an example 64-bit installation, 6.6GB are freed by the new compression algorithm and the removal of the recovery image. As illustrated here: http://az648995.vo.msecnd.net/win/2015/03/1a.png http://az648995.vo.msecnd.net/win/2015/03/1a.png

vmarsy 12y ago

We are also redesigning Windows’ Refresh and Reset functionalities to no longer use a separate recovery image (often preinstalled by manufacturers today) in order to bring Windows devices back to a pristine state If this mean that you will be able to go to BestBuy, and do a recovery to a pure Windows 10, blotware-less, without any .iso but just following a few steps, it seems even more interesting than a compact footprint!

demarq 12y ago

Keep the good news rolling in!

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

It sounds to me like they're just disallowing the OEM practice of recovery partitions, in favor of telling you to create restore media, like the old days, lol. Factory reset without recovery media isn't going to work if your runtime files have been infected and such.

kraken2 12y ago

MS-DOS version (1993): "DriveSpace (initially known as DoubleSpace) is a disk compression utility supplied with MS-DOS starting from version 6.0. The purpose of DriveSpace is to increase the amount of data the user could store on disks, by transparently compressing and decompressing data on-the-fly. It is primarily intended for use with hard drives, but use for floppy disks is also supported. Microsoft's decision to develop DoubleSpace and add it to MS-DOS was probably influenced by the fact that DOS-based operating systems from other manufacturers (IBM and Novell) had started including disk compression software in their products.[citation needed] Instead of developing its own product from scratch, Microsoft licensed the technology for the DoubleDisk product developed by Vertisoft and adapted it to become DoubleSpace. For instance, the loading of the driver controlling the compression/decompression (DBLSPACE.BIN) became more deeply integrated into the operating system (being loaded even before the CONFIG.SYS file)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace Windows 8 version (2014): "WIMBoot can significantly reduce the amount of space used by Windows files. This helps you provide more free space to users, and helps you manufacture Windows on PCs with smaller drives." https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn594399.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn594399.aspx

cyberjunkie 12y ago

This was critical in order to make these affordable 2-in-1, tablet-like laptops more usable. Most of them come with 16 or 32GB MMC storage and every gigabyte counts. Good on you, Microsoft. It helps the rest of us too!