Just Reclaimed 2+ GB of Disk Space on C:

[bitflipper]

As a former programmer, you are probably aware that in most companies installers are a last-minute consideration, and typically assigned to the most junior developers.

But I certainly understand your disdain for lazy programmers. I think about it every time I open my microwave and the "READY" beeps just keep on going, ignoring the fact that I've already responded and have removed my food. Meanwhile, my 40-year-old microwave that I keep in the garage to warm my coffee knows to stop beeping as soon as I open the door.

[Tim Smith]

Microwaves should have programmable sound. When it goes off-

Come get your coffee beefcake.

or......you're burning the darned thing! Must have put tin foil in there.

[TW5011]

On 4/12/2022 at 8:42 PM, bitflipper said:

As a former programmer, you are probably aware that in most companies installers are a last-minute consideration, and typically assigned to the most junior developers.

Yeah, I get it, but at the same time, these are technical people who should understand the value of not wasting lots of storage space on the C drive and the idea of having options to customize it.

There's also the concept of making a good first impression.  But I also know some people in corporations don't care.  Sometimes I wasn't allowed to make my apps look better -- only if it provided functional benefit.  And I've known developers who couldn't be bothered to even align their text on the GUI on software being sold to enterprises (which would take mere seconds to fix).

But I'm just ranting... first-world problems...  Let me refocus my perspective.  I'm thankful for all the music-making tools I have now, most of which didn't exist when I started making music.  I'll go work on some music now. 

[bitflipper]

When I worked for corporate masters, no new feature was allowed unless you could first prove that it would increase sales.

That's one reason I respect the Cakewalk model. Sometimes cool stuff just appears and I don't remember anybody demanding it.

[Bapu]

13 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

That's one reason I respect the Cakewalk model. Sometimes cool stuff just appears and I don't remember anybody demanding it.

They were on the Shadow Docket?

[Starship Krupa]

I've posted about this in the Tutorials and Deals forums.

I have a folder on my desktop with shortcuts to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid

C:\Program Files(\Common Files (x86)\Avid (dawg, if an installer is sloppy enough to spew AAX, chances are it will spew it in 32-bit as well)

C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Digidesign\DAE\Plug-Ins (iZotope likes to spew Pro Tools RTAS)

Also look for VST2 and 32-bit plug-ins that duplicate ones in your VST3 folder. NI are great for that, still clinging to VST2.

I call this folder "A|A|S Wipe" because A|A|S' installer used to be the worst for spewing. I wrote them a personal email to beg that they stop, which they eventually did. I think at their worst, they put 10 useless copies of their plug-in somewhere on my C: drive. Now they're one of the cleanest.

Also, don't forget C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp. There are many leftovers in there that only a manual deletion will get rid of. Installers are fond of putting stuff there and then forgetting to delete it.

[bitflipper]

Good tip! I found a bunch (800MB) in \program files (x86)\common files\avid\plug-ins. Didn't think to look there.

Not sure which of those were due to my own inattentiveness and which were due to lazy installers. Almost every vendor in there was a reputable source:  Spitfire, iZotope and even Cakewalk. And, of course, AAS.

My mistake was doing a global search for *.aax. 32-bit versions have an extension of .aaxplugin. When I went to root and typed "dir *.aax* /s" I found a bunch more.

[craigb]

I always use Glary Utilities.  The free version is awesome and I used it with many clients.  The one-button area includes a section that finds temporary files and does a great job. 🙂

Get it here!

[Shane_B.]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:16 PM, craigb said:

I always use Glary Utilities.  The free version is awesome and I used it with many clients.  The one-button area includes a section that finds temporary files and does a great job. 🙂

Get it here!

I'm going to check that out now. Thanks!

I finished Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and was going to download Fallout 4 this weekend ... nope. I got 23GB left on my SSD. The installer alone is 30GB, unpacked and installed I think it's around 47GB, then I'll probably mod the living daylights out of it and add another 100GB. I really need another larger C: drive but I don't have the strength or patients or knowhow to seamlessly and painlessly transfer the OS and everything without doing a fresh install. I could just add a drive but then I'd have to change the default install installation paths for the downloader and installer for F4 and I'm not sure how that will clash with mods and mod managers. Dealing with those things are like dealing with installing Dimension Pro and trying to put your samples in a directory other than the default. It can give you grey hair.

[Shane_B.]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:16 PM, craigb said:

I always use Glary Utilities. 

I just installed and ran this. It found a ton of stuff in my registry and fixed it and 2GB of files it said were ok to delete. I didn't because some of them were very old files with weird file extensions in old programs I still use like IMGBurn. I didn't know what would happen so I left them alone. It also found a ton of files in Brave, hundreds of MB's but every time I clear out any cache in it I have to re-log in to all my web sites so I'm afraid to do that to. Hah.

But ... it also found that two Firefox apps were loading during startup. I uninstalled Firefox months ago. It's nowhere to be found on my system. So I blocked them from loading. It's also said an internet client that a game downloader I was forced to install runs at startup even though I have the program set to not run at startup. When I checked the info on the file it said it is legit but is known to be used by hackers to slip malware on your system.

This utility is very similar to the one I mentioned in my previous post but a lot better. Thanks for mentioning this.

[bitflipper]

22 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

I finished Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and was going to download Fallout 4 this weekend ...

Fallout 4 is totally worth deleting those for. (Admittedly not a universal opinion.)

My solution to massive games eating disk space is getting a cheap external drive and copying old games to it before deleting. That way, I can always tell myself that I can restore them if I change my mind. To date I have never once re-installed a game that I'd previously tired of.

Also, I keep games physically separate from the important stuff (e.g. sample libraries and DAW projects). It's one thing to blow away Skyrim and another thing entirely to decide if a Kontakt library I haven't used since 2011 needs to go. 

[Bapu]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

Also, I keep games physically separate from the important stuff (e.g. sample libraries and DAW projects). It's one thing to blow away Skyrim and another thing entirely to decide if a Kontakt library I haven't used since 2011 needs to go. 

First world problem for sure. 🙂 

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Fallout 4 is totally worth deleting those for. (Admittedly not a universal opinion.)

My solution to massive games eating disk space is getting a cheap external drive and copying old games to it before deleting. That way, I can always tell myself that I can restore them if I change my mind. To date I have never once re-installed a game that I'd previously tired of.

Also, I keep games physically separate from the important stuff (e.g. sample libraries and DAW projects). It's one thing to blow away Skyrim and another thing entirely to decide if a Kontakt library I haven't used since 2011 needs to go. 

I think they are small enough to where I can back up the vanilla game installation folders for each one on to a single 25GB disc. Then I can back up the mods to their own disc and just do a quick copy/paste then use the Vortex Mod Manager to install the mods if I ever want to revisit those. You can get official DLC sized and larger quest mod's for FNV that are massive. There's a couple out now and there are a couple in the works. One based in Mexico iirc. Then you can even get a mod called TTW (Tale Of Two Wastelands) that combine F3 and FNV and use FNV's newer game engine to drive both. You play both as one long huge game and travel to both maps seamlessly if I'm understanding the mod right. I skipped all those mods and went on to F4 but I should download them and back them up to disc. The modding rules are changing and in retaliation a lot of modders are deleting their content. Probably a good idea to download and backup what's still available.

I managed to scrounge enough space after I used that Glary App Craig suggested. It took all night for F4 to download but it was waiting for me this morning. I love the building aspect of F4, but New Vegas set a pretty high bar.

I got Skyrim and F4 in a bundle on Steam. I'm not even going to download Skyrim until fall. Too tempting to just sit here and waste the hours away. I don't mind in the fall and winter so much when I can't get outside to do anything, but as soon as it stops raining here I need to get back outside. Plus I'm putting heat in my shop so I can work outside all year round now so I'm not sure how much time I'll for this now anyway. These games consume your life. It's not playing COD or shooter. The whole series is VERY addicting.

[bitflipper]

Isn't it strange, that a world where mutants want to eat you is still a more pleasant place to be than reality?

[craigb]

9 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

Isn't it strange, that a world where mutants want to eat you is still a more pleasant place to be than reality?

But, have you been to reality Dave?  It certainly isn't where we currently are!  😜

 

Maybe you need more faith in ?  🤔

[abacab]

There are also several Download Managers that I recall tend to "cache" your downloads until you manually push a button to clear them out. That can also add up.

Starting with:

• Acustica Aquarius
• Toontrack Product Manager
• Waves Central

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by abacab

[bitflipper]

I have to keep getting rid of my old Cakewalk installers. I like to keep the most recent one just in case, but tend to forget about them. Just looked and I had 2 GB worth of Cakewalk installers hanging about.

 

[EDIT: Now that I think about it, though, that may just be me and my fellow beta testers, who sometimes update multiple times a month. I'm thinking that the BandLab downloader must get rid of installation files automatically, right?]

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Isn't it strange, that a world where mutants want to eat you is still a more pleasant place to be than reality?

It sure is.

Once I level up enough and don't have to sneak around I find it very relaxing to just wander around the desert in FNV and take in the eye candy. Between the ambient sounds and modding it with hi-res graphics then add in that Nevada Skies Weather Effects mod and wow. Just wow. Here's a vid that shows the options for Nevada Skies. It also allows you to adjust gamma, brightness, what the night sky looks like, among many other things all real-time in the menu screen without having to shut down and restart. It's pretty incredible and a little scary how these kids are able to write these mods.

[craigb]

I'm looking forward to when I can add a gaming video card to my new (Jim Roseberry created) computer and play some of the newer games.  This will definitely happen after I've been working again for awhile or else my subconscious will pester me that I should be using my time more wisely which kills the fun factor!

[Shane_B.]

1 hour ago, craigb said:

I'm looking forward to when I can add a gaming video card to my new (Jim Roseberry created) computer and play some of the newer games.  This will definitely happen after I've been working again for awhile or else my subconscious will pester me that I should be using my time more wisely which kills the fun factor!

Alcohol helps quiet that subconscious. 👍🏻

Start saving now. To give you a rough idea of how this works ... Fallout 4 is almost 7 years old. I have a modern card that is nowhere near the 'low end'. F4 can't even detect it and automatically set itself to max resolution because the card is too new. It's about in the middle of what's available now. I have a 12GB EVGA RTX 3060. It runs the older Fallout's that are 10 + years old smooth as glass maxed out in 4K but I have to kick the resolution down and lower the graphics details for Fallout 4. Pretty amazing considering the recommended 'high spec' cards for this can't even hold a candle to the 3060. The top card you can get now is a 3090 Ti. They are going for around $2.1K and I'd be willing to bet it still wouldn't run this with all settings set to max. That said, it runs great if you lower your expectations and settings of the eye candy. F3 and FNV look much better than F4 IMO. And another odd thing, it actually looks better on console than PC and loads faster on console. This is why I got out of PC gaming originally. It's an endless money pit. On console you are locked, no options, you know what you're getting in to, and you accept it going in.