C:\Windows folder is consuming lot of thesterious space

disk-space-utilizationwindows-server-2003

What I have?

I have installed Windows Server 2003 with following details:

OS installed in: C drive

Space allocated to C drive: 50GB

RAM: 4GB

Important space consuming software installed: Visual studio 2005 & 2008, Office 2007, MOSS 2007 and SQL Server 2005

C:\Program Files folder size is around 9GB

C:\Documents and Settings folder size is around 2GB

What problem am I facing?

When I see properties of C:\Windows folder (by right clicking ON the folder), it shows the size as 32GB. But, if I open C:\Windows folder in Windows Explorer, select all files & folder (including hidden ones) and go to properties dialog, it shows about 7GB!

But, my C drive is running out of memory often and I am not able to find what is consuming the rest 25GB of space.

Can anyone help me in cleaning up my C drive?

Thanks in advance!

Update-1

After Raintree' suggestion, I found out that the folder, C:\WINDOWS\Installer is consuming around 29GB of space.

Is it fine to clear this folder?

Best Answer

Did you also uncheck "Hide protected operating system files," also found under Tools, Folder Options, View?

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Sql-server – Setting up SQL Server 2005 to use all available memory in 32bit Windows Server 2003 – and verifying it

You won't be able to use AWE with Windows 2003 Standard. You need Enterprise, see Large memory support is available in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows 2000:

PAE is the added ability of the IA32 processor to address more than 4 GB of physical memory. The following operating systems can use PAE to take advantage of physical memory beyond 4 GB:
* Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
* Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
* Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
* Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
To enable PAE, use the /PAE switch in the Boot.ini file.

The working set you see is 7MB, not 7GB. That is a normal working set for a process, since working set don't measure the amount of memory allocated to a process, but only the working set which is always much much smaller:

Shows the current number of bytes in the working set of this process. The working set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a certain threshold, pages are left in the working set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a certain threshold, pages are trimmed from working sets. If they are needed, they are then soft-faulted back into the working set before they leave main memory.

You need to look at Process\Virtual Bytes instead:

Shows the current size, in bytes, of the virtual address space that the process is using. Use of virtual address space does not necessarily imply corresponding use of either disk or main memory pages. Virtual space is finite, and by using too much, the process can limit its ability to load libraries.

The SQL Server memory is 3GB, which is all it can allocate on Windows Standard with /3GB switch.

So you'll need to purchase a Enterprise Windows license, or simply move to an 64 bit OS and 64 bit SQL deployment (which is really the only sane option).

Large temp files created in Windows Server 2003 temp folder

I'd setup File Monitor with a suitable filter and leave it running. Or have it triggered by Performance Monitor. Certainly leave Perfmon running to see the time as this might give an indication of a cronjob running at the same time etc..

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