For anyone that is interested, I have recorded the size of the Winsxs from a fresh install to a fully loaded system........why? to try a find out what this folder grows to such a huge size.
It would seem that Vista itself is the primary reason for the Winsxs file to grow to such huge sizes and by some quite surprising margins. For example 215mb of updates equates to a 3.4GB increase in the Winsxs folder!
The winsxs file topped out at around 13GB to 14GB when all updates had been applied including SP1 & SP2......roughly 60% of the entire Windows folder (21GB).
It seems a bit lame that Vista can?t sort itself out when updating itself without huge apparent duplication (?)
Vista 64 Ultimate install:
Winsxs size: 5.10GB
Files: 29,673
Folders: 8,032
SP1 install (Full SP, file size 744mb)
Winsxs size: 8.46GB
Files: 46,062
Folders: 12,909
Post SP1 Updates (Total file size 215mb)
Winsxs size: 11.86GB
Files: 49,865
Folders: 13,825
SP2 install (Full SP, file size 629mb)
Winsxs size: 14.2GB
Files: 56,925
Folders: 15,925
Office 2007, Photoshop, Cyberlink, Live care
Winsxs size: 13.6GB
Files: 56,101
Folders: 15,754
Office 2007 SP1 and SP2 updates & Call of Duty W@W Plus 1.1 patch
Winsxs size: 13.7GB
Files: 56,174
Folders: 15,757