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I have a virtual machine with Windows 7 x64 quest OS. When I boot from PE OS CD and run file manager (Total Commander) I see that the total size of my files on virtual machine is more than total disk size. What is the reason?

EDIT: My Windows folder size is about 11.4 Gb while disk size is 10.3 Gb. And WinSxS folder size is about 6 Gb.

SKINDER
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2 Answers2

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Total Commander must not be aware of linked files; Windows has functionality similar to symlinks in *nix environments. So the same file can appear in multiple locations.

Either that or you've got NTFS compression turned on somewhere and that's reducing the size on disk vs the file size.

Chris S
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  • But Windows 7 Explorer shows me the same info. That my Windows folder is about 11.4 Gb and that used space on my disk is 9.5 Gb... – SKINDER Sep 03 '10 at 13:06
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    in this case it's hard links, not symlinks, especially in the winsxs directory. @SKINDER: Windows Explorer is also not smart enough to figure out the difference. – ThatGraemeGuy Sep 03 '10 at 13:25
  • @Graeme Donaldson But how can I tell hard links from real files? May be you can advise me any soft? – SKINDER Sep 03 '10 at 13:30
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    This is the NL_Info plugin for Total Commander for displaying information about NTFS hard links: http://ghisler.fileburst.com/content/wdx_nl_info.zip – SKINDER Sep 03 '10 at 13:53
  • @Graeme, you are absolutely correct, I only said that because more people are familiar with the term 'symlink' than 'hardlink', and many don't understand the difference anyway, so I just pull out the C-level "it's like a symlink (sorta)". – Chris S Sep 03 '10 at 15:20
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It is because hard links to WinSxS components have the same size as real components and included many times...

SKINDER
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