Future Windows 10 Builds Will Reserve Storage and Tabulate It

I think Microsoft believes people are too stupid to leave space free for updates, so they are doing it for them. I saw the screen shot of the feature on thurrott.com, and it looks like something that Android has. It tells you free space that you can use, and then it says xxx GB of System Files, and you can't use that storage. Soon, people will be too stupid to know where to save files, so Microsoft will do it for them, in the cloud. Scary stuff!
 
Shotglass01 said:
WTF is a "low storage solution?" If your low on storage, it's not a 'solution.' And the OS should know that before it goes and tries to install any more Candy Crush.
Click to expand...
Low storage solutions are low end Chromebooks running windows which barely have the capacity for windows itself, not to mention any other programs,windows feature updates, security updates, etc.

I'm not arguing it is an optimal solution, but plugging security holes should be a priority, and this may better facilitate that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DKS
like this
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's not just that. Modern partitioning schemes are a mess. I like them to be clean. On my windows 10 boot drive the partitioning scheme looks something like this after the latest Windows 10 Update.

1.) EFI Partition 99MB Fat 32 - This one is not Microsofts fault, but still bloody annoying. I wish we could just go back to the good old BIOS/MBR Scheme. It was much simpler. But no. If you want NVME, you need UEFI. I hate UEFI.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? None of my disks have the 100mb partition. I've got an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon with a 2700x and I'm booting Windows 10 off of an M2 drive using an MBR. MSI has a 'legacy+UEFI' boot mode option that lets you use the old style booting.
 
sadsteve said:
Are you sure? None of my disks have the 100mb partition. I've got an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon with a 2700x and I'm booting Windows 10 off of an M2 drive using an MBR. MSI has a 'legacy+UEFI' boot mode option that lets you use the old style booting.
Click to expand...

Is your M.2 drive NVME?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's not just that. Modern partitioning schemes are a mess. I like them to be clean. On my windows 10 boot drive the partitioning scheme looks something like this after the latest Windows 10 Update.

1.) EFI Partition 99MB Fat 32 - This one is not Microsofts fault, but still bloody annoying. I wish we could just go back to the good old BIOS/MBR Scheme. It was much simpler. But no. If you want NVME, you need UEFI. I hate UEFI.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I've got an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon and I'm booting Windows 10 off of an M2 drive. MSI lets you select in their BIOS mode. I don't have the 100mb partition on any of my drives.
SGTGimpy said:
I am guessing you used a installation disk provided by your Laptops manufacture. Those are not fresh install media and have customizations built into the OS from the OEM. This is my guess as to why you have that 4th 900MB partition. As with a true fresh install of Windows (using the media creation tool to create a USB install media), you will only have three partitions.

First is the 500MB recovery partition, which you cannot delete as this is where the Windows 10 recovery tools and alternate boot options live.

Second is the UEFI partition which is required for UEFI bios. (it even exist in UEFI compatible linux distros and MAC OSX).

Third will be your Data partition. (unless configured other wise)

If you have anymore than these, you did not perform a fresh install of Windows 10. This is the same for Windows 8 and all version of Windows 10 up to version 1809. Below is a screen shot of on of my Intel Hades Canyon NUC that I just performed a fresh install of Windwos 10 1809 this week with all drivers and Windows updates as of yesterday.



If your fresh Windows install takes up 1/4 of your 1TB SSD space, then you did not do a fresh install. A base windows install with no updates or drivers is around 17GB depending on install type and version. After updates and drivers, the install foot print should be anywhere from 22GB-30GB approximantly. Anything beyond that, there is an issue.

As for Microsoft adding this ability to Windows, it will be a big help for us in the support field. I hope they also add an option to purge all system, drivers and update stores that are no longer needed. This was a major issue in Windows 7 as it's system stores would just keep growing, especially its driver stores. I have seen Windows 7 System directories at 70+ GB before.

Also this is not just a Microsoft issue, ALL OS reserve system and other utility spaces including Linux. Just some are way better at managing and house cleaning it than others.[/QUOTE
Click to expand...
AltTabbins said:
Is your M.2 drive NVME?
Click to expand...

Doh, no. Just a lowly 850 evo M2.
 
sadsteve said:
Are you sure? I've got an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon and I'm booting Windows 10 off of an M2 drive. MSI lets you select in their BIOS mode. I don't have the 100mb partition on any of my drives.



Doh, no. Just a lowly 850 evo M2.
Click to expand...

Yeah so it is SATA and running in CSM mode. So you are not booting to UEFI and are using CSM compatible BIOS to boot. That is why you don't have the 100MB partition as you OS was not installed using UEFI. Also means you probably don't have secure boot enabled either.
 
well im not confident that ms will implement it properly without it randomly deleting peoples files or hosing their os partition, seems they cant even get folder properties to display the proper number of files or the size therein anymore.
 
SGTGimpy said:
Yeah so it is SATA and running in CSM mode. So you are not booting to UEFI and are using CSM compatible BIOS to boot. That is why you don't have the 100MB partition as you OS was not installed using UEFI. Also means you probably don't have secure boot enabled either.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know I'm not booting UEFI. Had too many issues in the early days trying to get FreeBSD, Linux and Windows to multiboot so I stick with legacy mode.
 
DPI said:
I swear, keeping your PC safe from Microsoft meddling these days is like trying to keep knives out of the hands of children.
Click to expand...

I have two angles on this.

As a parent to two toddlers keeping knives out of my kids hands is easy, into a locked drawer they go.

As a neighbor, keeping knives out of the neighborhood kids hands is indeed hard. It would be much easier if they didn't cry so much when stabbed and it would be helpful if the blood trails didn't lead back to my house
 
sadsteve said:
Yeah, I know I'm not booting UEFI. Had too many issues in the early days trying to get FreeBSD, Linux and Windows to multiboot so I stick with legacy mode.
Click to expand...
Rule is it don't install it on the same drive and unplug all other drive in tell after the first reboot problem solved used you bios as boot menu
 
Like that creepy "study user behaviour" solution to schedule the updates at more convenient times, this is another band-aid solution which does not address the fundamental problem: the entire windows update process is a broken mess.
 
Dear people you do know that it no diff then your phone or tablet
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You got it. You are only missing the invisible 16MB mystery partition that sits right infront of your main NTFS partition. Windows hides that one from you for some reason.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you on all your posts about this. I purposely did clean re-installs of W10 right around the anniversary build after I noticed the previous ones having similar mystery partitions. I've got 3 rigs in the house and all are pretty different other than having the exact same OS. I know I've prepared the OS drives prior to install on all of them. This simplest one has 3 partitions, I only remember creating two and one has nearly the same 4-5 as you listed in your screen shots.

I've taken the risk, once or twice, and tried deleting some of these things. Sometimes it lets me, sometimes it doesn't. When I do, it seems at some point they come back anyway. I kind of gave up since I don't want to bork any of my rigs and deal with the time to do another re-install or re-image since most backups are not going to include whatever is in these mysterious black holes.
 
Dk975 said:
I think Microsoft believes people are too stupid to leave space free for updates, so they are doing it for them. I saw the screen shot of the feature on thurrott.com, and it looks like something that Android has. It tells you free space that you can use, and then it says xxx GB of System Files, and you can't use that storage. Soon, people will be too stupid to know where to save files, so Microsoft will do it for them, in the cloud. Scary stuff!
Click to expand...
When it comes to computers the common person is stupid. They just want it too work and loose their shit when it doesn't. It is why things like geek squad still exist.
 
DukenukemX said:
I just bought a 1TB Corsair M.2 SSD and this is my first SSD. Not the first I've installed just the first I've owned cause I couldn't be bothered dealing with 250GB or less storage. It helps that 1TB is now $135. I just reinstalled Windows 10 and it took literally 1/4 of that 1TB storage, though admittedly I did install other things like Chocolatey along with a bunch of what I consider essential free apps. You know FireFox, Chrome, FileZilla, Putty, and of course Klite just to name a few.
.
Click to expand...
How? I also just installed windows 10 on a clean computer, it takes less than 30GB.
 
DukenukemX said:
I just bought a 1TB Corsair M.2 SSD and this is my first SSD. Not the first I've installed just the first I've owned cause I couldn't be bothered dealing with 250GB or less storage. It helps that 1TB is now $135. I just reinstalled Windows 10 and it took literally 1/4 of that 1TB storage, though admittedly I did install other things like Chocolatey along with a bunch of what I consider essential free apps. You know FireFox, Chrome, FileZilla, Putty, and of course Klite just to name a few.

So I can see why people who own 250GB or less SSD's might run into problems updating Windows 10. It doesn't help that some Windows 10 updates are like updating from Windows 7 to 10. Of course I have HDD drives for real storage, but you don't have this problem with Linux. Updating Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.04.1 doesn't require 7GB of storage, hell updating from 16.04 to 18.04 needs like a fraction of that. It's been said hundreds of times but Microsoft really needs to fix Windows update, it just sucks.
Click to expand...
True. When I haven't updated my mom's computer in several months (it runs Manjaro) there are a lot of pending updates. In fact, most of the OS AND programs get updated, and the download size is at must a little over 1GB.

Linux reserves by default 5% of any given filesystem for root (so if the / partition is full you can login as root and do stuff). That % is specified at fs creation or format, and you can change it to whatever value your like, even 0.
 
The only problem I've ever had with space is because Windows makes a stupid small system partition and then puts the c partition right up against it so it can't be expanded later. If they just mirrored the partition on c and pushed it to the system partition after applying and verifying updates that wouldn't be an issue...or any number of other solutions.
 
Nobu said:
Swap
Click to expand...
I don't think it's fair to include the swapfile or hiberfile as part of the windows install size.
But even then you'd need 128GB ram to be able to occupy 1/4 of a 1TB drive with hibernation enabled, which none should leave enabled anyway.
 
vegeta535 said:
When it comes to computers the common person is stupid. They just want it too work and loose their shit when it doesn't. It is why things like geek squad still exist.
Click to expand...

Please guys, they're 'ignorant', not 'stupid' (of coarse some people are). I know lots of intelligent people who have no inclination to learn the inner workings of their computer hardware or OS (heh, they have me for that!!). They have their own priorities and just want to use the applications and apps. It's just like most people don't want to learn the inner workings of their car/truck/motorcycle.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DocNo
like this
DukenukemX said:
I just bought a 1TB Corsair M.2 SSD and this is my first SSD. Not the first I've installed just the first I've owned cause I couldn't be bothered dealing with 250GB or less storage. It helps that 1TB is now $135. I just reinstalled Windows 10 and it took literally 1/4 of that 1TB storage, though admittedly I did install other things like Chocolatey along with a bunch of what I consider essential free apps. You know FireFox, Chrome, FileZilla, Putty, and of course Klite just to name a few.

So I can see why people who own 250GB or less SSD's might run into problems updating Windows 10. It doesn't help that some Windows 10 updates are like updating from Windows 7 to 10. Of course I have HDD drives for real storage, but you don't have this problem with Linux. Updating Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.04.1 doesn't require 7GB of storage, hell updating from 16.04 to 18.04 needs like a fraction of that. It's been said hundreds of times but Microsoft really needs to fix Windows update, it just sucks.
Click to expand...

Wndows 10 did not take anywhere near the 1/4 of the drive you proclaim it did. At worst, it would take maybe 30GB or so on it's own. I have a 250GB NVME SSD and if what you are saying is true, I would end up with a full drive right after installing Windows 10 and a few programs. No, this is not a fanboy or Microsoft "Employee" talking, this is straight up common sense.

Edit: Even my work laptop has only used 51.9 GB, and that is with everything I need on a day to day basis.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Right now it is very tricky to resize partitions and make changes to my drive in a cros-platform environment because the messy junk Microsoft places on my drive.

For instance, those little 16mb partitions before every main NTFS partition created in Windows are of undetectable format. Because of this, nothing outside of Windows can move them.

Then there is the waste of space. I know a gig or so between the Microsoft reserved partition and the system restore partition isnt a huge amount of space these days, but it still bothers me.

Then there's also the fact that I don't know why these parititons are there. I need to know why they are there, what data they contain, and what purpose they serve for me to be comfortable with them.

Whats probably the worst part is that Microsoft is engaging in very risky behavior by resizing, moving and creating partitions on peoples computers without even telling them during build upgrade time. Everyone who has ever worked on a computer knows that if you care about a partitions content at all, you ALWAYS back it up before any resize or move operations.

Its also an annoyance. A ton of little partitions spread out everywhere is very messy and looks ugly.
Click to expand...

You do understand that MBR does not support larger block / sector sizes nor anything beyond 2TB in partition sizes? MBR is thankfully dying, it has outlived it usefulness but hey, why not just demand we go back to fat16 well you are at it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: DocNo
like this
sadsteve said:
Are you sure? None of my disks have the 100mb partition. I've got an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon with a 2700x and I'm booting Windows 10 off of an M2 drive using an MBR. MSI has a 'legacy+UEFI' boot mode option that lets you use the old style booting.
Click to expand...

M.2 NVME?
 
ManofGod said:
You do understand that MBR does not support larger block / sector sizes nor anything beyond 2TB in partition sizes? MBR is thankfully dying, it has outlived it usefulness but hey, why not just demand we go back to fat16 well you are at it?
Click to expand...

That's fine. I don't have any drives that large except for in my NAS.

They could ahve just upgraded MBR's partiton size compatibility, rather than create the mess that is UEFI.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's fine. I don't have any drives that large except for in my NAS.

They could ahve just upgraded MBR's partiton size compatibility, rather than create the mess that is UEFI.
Click to expand...

MBR's ability was mathematically limited, if I understand it correctly. (Sector / block addresses.) I have not done full research on it but that would seem to make the most sense.
 
M76 said:
I don't think it's fair to include the swapfile or hiberfile as part of the windows install size.
But even then you'd need 128GB ram to be able to occupy 1/4 of a 1TB drive with hibernation enabled, which none should leave enabled anyway.
Click to expand...
Note System-managed page files automatically grow up to three times physical memory or 4 GB (whichever is larger) when the system commit charge reaches 90 percent of the system commit limit. This assumes that enough free disk space is available to accommodate the growth.
Click to expand...
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...opriate-page-file-size-for-64-bit-versions-of
So, you'd need ~86GB (85.33GB × 3 ×4 = 1024GB) of ram, so yeah a bit unrealistic.
ManofGod said:
MBR's ability was mathematically limited, if I understand it correctly. (Sector / block addresses.) I have not done full research on it but that would seem to make the most sense.
Click to expand...
It has to do with the size of the data type they used for one of the attributes, yeah.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's fine. I don't have any drives that large except for in my NAS.

They could ahve just upgraded MBR's partiton size compatibility, rather than create the mess that is UEFI.
Click to expand...

They did upgrade MBR. It is called UEFI.

Not all system can just be upgraded as it will require to much work, overhead or it is just not possible and a newer system built from the ground up is your only option.
 
Dk975 said:
I think Microsoft believes people are too stupid to leave space free for updates
Click to expand...

They don't think - they know they are. Why do you think they wanted telemetry - it was to learn why things like updates were failing and then come up with strategies to mitigate those failure modes.

Yup, they are annoying to the tiny percentage of nerds that are on sites like this. For everyone else, it's actually hugely valuable - for the end users as well as Microsoft support.

Meh. I have no problem with this. It would be nice if there were an advanced way to opt out, but then all the junk advice sites and scam "cleaners" would tout their value in turning it off and we'd back to the same place with failing updates and broken installs.

Anyway I do something similar and have for years. I create at least three or four empty 1GB files to reserve space. Especially on server C: drives. Has saved my ass numerous times over the years from all kinds of crazy scenarios that you wouldn't think about happening. Doesn't matter. It's far easier to have space in reserve then trying to clean up after stuff has gone south.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I just want Windows to stop messing with my drive and repartitioning it.

I want a windows install with a single windows partition. None of this microsoft reserved garbage.

Not only does my Windows 10 install at home have two several hundred MB micorsoft reserved partitions, and the recovery partition I don't want. It also inserts a tiny little partition infront of every single NTFS partition that is INVISIBLE from within windows (WTF?) Open up any other operating system or rescue disk though and there they are.

I just want to get back to where I had control over my computer.

Single Windows partition. Nothing else. PLEASE!
Click to expand...

So you don't want correctly block-aligned partitions then? Well OK, your call, but personally I prefer my storage to be as fast as possible. Sure, the partition is bigger than it needs to be, but it does have a purpose as well other than alignment.
 
DukenukemX said:
I just bought a 1TB Corsair M.2 SSD and this is my first SSD. Not the first I've installed just the first I've owned cause I couldn't be bothered dealing with 250GB or less storage. It helps that 1TB is now $135. I just reinstalled Windows 10 and it took literally 1/4 of that 1TB storage, though admittedly I did install other things like Chocolatey along with a bunch of what I consider essential free apps. You know FireFox, Chrome, FileZilla, Putty, and of course Klite just to name a few.

So I can see why people who own 250GB or less SSD's might run into problems updating Windows 10. It doesn't help that some Windows 10 updates are like updating from Windows 7 to 10. Of course I have HDD drives for real storage, but you don't have this problem with Linux. Updating Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.04.1 doesn't require 7GB of storage, hell updating from 16.04 to 18.04 needs like a fraction of that. It's been said hundreds of times but Microsoft really needs to fix Windows update, it just sucks.
Click to expand...


Kinda strange.
I've used loads of 120gb SSDs for Win10 installs
Once its all updated it takes maybe 40gb...even less mostly
 
SvenBent said:
Why I went back to windows 7
Windows 10 does not longer warning you about stuff it just takes control and does as it pleases...
delete software because it doesn liek it heck why not
changed networks settings because whatererv hades yes
install it own drivers without asking Hell yeah
Click to expand...

You forgot Windows updates that corrupt files to the point where it is irrecoverable... Happened to me twice already and exhausted every option. Now every update terrifies me on W10.
 
psy81 said:
You forgot Windows updates that corrupt files to the point where it is irrecoverable... Happened to me twice already and exhausted every option. Now every update terrifies me on W10.
Click to expand...
system restore should run on your system drive before the update(s) are applied - is that not working?

edit: fyi - windows update beware - Windows 10 1803 KB4480966

I just have notifications on - auto download and give other products is OFF
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H] said:
I just want Windows to stop messing with my drive and repartitioning it.

I want a windows install with a single windows partition. None of this microsoft reserved garbage.

Not only does my Windows 10 install at home have two several hundred MB micorsoft reserved partitions, and the recovery partition I don't want. It also inserts a tiny little partition infront of every single NTFS partition that is INVISIBLE from within windows (WTF?) Open up any other operating system or rescue disk though and there they are.

I just want to get back to where I had control over my computer.

Single Windows partition. Nothing else. PLEASE!
Click to expand...

Windows 7 never went away ;)

and Linux is actually worse in this regard.
 
Mega6 said:
system restore should run on your system drive before the update(s) are applied - is that not working?

edit: fyi - windows update beware - Windows 10 1803 KB4480966

I just have notifications on - auto download and give other products is OFF
Click to expand...

In both cases, after the failed update it went into a windows boot loop where it could not boot into Windows. System restore/repair function was not working and failing so I tried using all the CMD options and I also hired a tech to come over and troubleshoot. Believe me, we tried every option out there and in the end all I could do is reformat and so far so good. The second time I had 7 TB of games installed so had to start from scratch. Never had this issue with W7. W10 is a hot mess. I would revert back to W7 if it had DX12 support.
 
psy81 said:
In both cases, after the failed update it went into a windows boot loop where it could not boot into Windows. System restore/repair function was not working and failing so I tried using all the CMD options and I also hired a tech to come over and troubleshoot. Believe me, we tried every option out there and in the end all I could do is reformat and so far so good. The second time I had 7 TB of games installed so had to start from scratch. Never had this issue with W7. W10 is a hot mess. I would revert back to W7 if it had DX12 support.
Click to expand...

Yeah dx12 it is and I dont even use that. Use the windows7 backup and take system images of everything. I don't bother with the libraries to save space and mount the vhdx and have LOTS of drives to keep my data safe and separate. C: boot has ONLY OS and if it goes, which it will eventually.. to recover quickly.

*divide and conquer*
 
Last edited:
Anybody know if this space is going to be a hidden folder on C: or is it going to be a hidden partition? This is going to make system image backups bigger unless the 7GB is mostly empty. I hope you can clean this 7 GB in drive cleaner before doing a system image.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top