Solved Windows 8 Config Files Taking up 24GB

[wetibbe]

I'm marking time march is step waiting.


No further comments until .............................

 

[wetibbe]

Not resolved

This issue is pending.

Posters who ask have an obligation to follow through until satisfaction.

As time permits I will be responding/implementing the moves provided with thanks and appreciation to support fellow enforcers.

 

[harddrive]

I did. This would only have been a few Gigs though.

Did you ever delete the Windows.old folder after upgrading? Not technically withstanding, I can see how that could somehow be "tied" to the configuration and it certainly must contain a few GBs of files and directories.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2527-windows-old-folder-delete-windows-8-a.html

In any event, I would recommend just doing the clean install by following Brink's excellent tutorial here:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13375-clean-install-windows-8-upgrade.html

 

[harddrive]

It looks like most the problem is in the config folder itself.

It looks like these same drivers are repeated over and over again.

 

[harddrive]

Topgun.... you da man. This is exactly my issue.

I have deleted all regtrans files and that freed up 23GB... Now the question is how long will it take for these file to recreate themselves and fill up my hard drive again!

Thanks for the help!

Before you decide to do a fresh install. Back up your important data and please try this:

1. from folder Options, set it to show hidden files & protected hidden system files
2. go to config folder and view with details and sort them by Types
3. Delete all files with extension .regtrans-ms and extension .blf under Config folder and TxR folder (I've already explained what they are on previous post)
   This should free up about ~ 23GB which bring your C:\Windows folder size down.
4. Download CCleaner to clean up your registry
5. Reboot your PC and you'll see Windows will re-create a new set of regtrans-ms & .blf files.

Take a look at the screen shot below. I deleted those last night and now I have a total of 33 files under config folder compared to what you have ~ 68,000 files and Windows 8 still run without any glitches.

EDIT: here's more info on .regtrans-ms
Regtrans-ms files filling entire hard drive - Microsoft Community

View attachment 17062

 

[topgundcp]

I have deleted all regtrans files and that freed up 23GB... Now the question is how long will it take for these file to recreate themselves and fill up my hard drive again!

Windows 8 installation takes about ~20GB is about right. The chance that it will re-create these files are minimal. Since you upgraded to Windows 8 from Windows 7 and some of the files were carried over from Windows 7 and from the beginning, some of the drivers were not working properly and kept on creating these rollbacks until Windows Updates updated these drivers. If the drivers are clean, then these regtrans & bif should be deleted by themself once the registry has been updated successfully. However, keep using Treesize to monitor this config folder and report back if it keeps on increasing in size then we'll use process explorer to monitor what drivers/Apps creating these files.
BTW, I've just looked at my config folder and it stayed the same as last night

Cheers !!!

UPDATE: I forgot to tell you one more thing. Use the procedure in this article to delete all the hidden drivers and ghosted Devices. That also would prevent those orphan regtrans from being created. Run it as Administrator
How To Remove/Uninstall Hidden Devices (Ghosted Devices) From Windows?

In addition, to save a few more disk space, you can delete all the files under:
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
Those are Windows Updates files that have been installed, You don't need them and of course don't delete them during Windows Updates.

 

[Ztruker]

I installed Windows 8 when it was first made available from MS on 7/26/2012.

I currently have 593 .regtrans-ms files, each 512KB in size for a total of about 250MB so at least for me they are not growing quickly.

 

[topgundcp]

I installed Windows 8 when it was first made available from MS on 7/26/2012.

I currently have 593 .regtrans-ms files, each 512KB in size for a total of about 250MB so at least for me they are not growing quickly.

You can actually use the above procedure to delete them if you want to save a few megs. Windows does not need them and won't use them, they are just orphan files. After I cleaned up mine. My config folder contains only 33 files

Cheers

 

[harddrive]

Appreciate the knowledge. I was about to buy a 256GB drive. You saved me a couple hundred bucks.

I have deleted all regtrans files and that freed up 23GB... Now the question is how long will it take for these file to recreate themselves and fill up my hard drive again!

Windows 8 installation takes about ~20GB is about right. The chance that it will re-create these files are minimal. Since you upgraded to Windows 8 from Windows 7 and some of the files were carried over from Windows 7 and from the beginning, some of the drivers were not working properly and kept on creating these rollbacks until Windows Updates updated these drivers. If the drivers are clean, then these regtrans & bif should be deleted by themself once the registry has been updated successfully. However, keep using Treesize to monitor this config folder and report back if it keeps on increasing in size then we'll use process explorer to monitor what drivers/Apps creating these files.
BTW, I've just looked at my config folder and it stayed the same as last night

Cheers !!!

UPDATE: I forgot to tell you one more thing. Use the procedure in this article to delete all the hidden drivers and ghosted Devices. That also would prevent those orphan regtrans from being created. Run it as Administrator
How To Remove/Uninstall Hidden Devices (Ghosted Devices) From Windows?

In addition, to save a few more disk space, you can delete all the files under:
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
Those are Windows Updates files that have been installed, You don't need them and of course don't delete them during Windows Updates.

 

[topgundcp]

I am glad it worked out for you. FYI, My SSD is only 128GB and I have tons of Apps installed and the total used space is only 42GB so ideally 80GB is plenty for your Win OS. of course I never store my data, emails etc... in C: drive to keep my backup image small and takes only ~7 minutes to backup/restore