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visual-studiovisual-studio-2013
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Reputation: 4769

How to recover space after Visual Studio 2013 updates?

Before installing VS 2013 I expanded my VM volume to have 20GB free space. After installing VS 2013 only 8GB was left. Visual Studio 2013 update 3 took another 6GB of my hard drive. I haven't even installed C++ and WinPhone SDK..

I've tried to find what does take so much space.

My OS Windows Server 2008 R2

Upvotes: 5

Views: 4267

Answers (2)

Gene Pauly
Gene Pauly

Reputation: 1645

I have an 80 Gb SSD and a larger HDD. The VS install was using too much space on the SSD, what I did was copy some of it's folders to my HDD, delete the original folders, then link them back to their original paths as directory junctions. Haven't noticed any problems with this arrangement so far.

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs points to D:\ssd\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits points to D:\ssd\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits
  • C:\ProgramData\Package Cache points to D:\ssd\ProgramData\Package Cache

Saved around 6 Gb on my SSD.
P.S. When I read about what package cache is, I thought it's one of most ridiculous Microsoft ideas ever.

Upvotes: 0

Ehsan Abidi
Ehsan Abidi

Reputation: 959

I think you are right, updating Visual Studio will eat disk space , It is a problem If like me have an small SSD hard disk.

No matter where your Visual Studio is installed , it eat disk space on Windows drive. The files occupying space in the following path:

C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\

There is discussions about whether delete this folder or not on the web.

There are other things (except above folder) that take disk spaces, you can run Disk cleaner softwares and be sure to select things like (they may not selected by default):

  • Windows update
  • Software Temporary Installation

Upvotes: 1

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