Disk Usage on Windows under Windows\Installer – Useful Tools

Windows usage is mostly an occupational hazard for access to tools such as Microsoft Visio, VMware vSphere, proprietary VPN software, XenCenter, etc. We tend to use it on an as-needed basis via Parallels on macOS.

For a virtual machine with very little software, the assigned 60GB drive was full. Windows doesn’t display folder sizes in its File Explorer and so TreeSize Free proved a very useful tool for locating the space hogs.

This led me to a system and hidden directory: \Windows\Installer. It had amassed 30GB or orphaned update files. 50% of my allocated space. To clear this up, PatchCleaner worked a charm.

Good hunting.

Essential Windows Software for a Fresh Install

I get landed with new computers from time to time for colleagues, friends and family to install / set-up. Here is my list of essential Windows software for these.

The first thing I do is a fresh install of Windows to remove the crazy and ridiculous amount of bloatware that comes pre-installed and makes the system as slow as a wet week. Then after re-installing Windows and the necessary hardware drivers (Windows Update will get most of these automatically), I then: