Launcher install directories - saving space

[simonmaster]

Hi all,

 

I recently came to the conclusion I had 3 directories where the W3D Launcher is saving files to.

These are:

C:\Users\Simon\AppData\Roaming\W3D Hub This directory is 160Mb big and all of it seems related to TSR (ttfs is the only sub folder)

C:\Users\All Users\W3D Hub This directory is a whopping 6.1 Gb big and contains the package cache with all the versions

D:\Program Files (x86)\W3D Hub This is the main directory where al the games are installed, and is 9.30 Gb big (also pretty huge, blame testing)

 

 

Now, my C drive is a 100 Gb SSD (my bootdrive), and I was updating to the new versions today and suddenly the drive is full, and I think it is because of the Package cache (it had 2 Gb free space)

Can I delete files in the C:\Users\All Users\W3D Hub folder, or do I have to find other ways to get more space?

 

 

Regards,

Simon

[Einstein]

You can delete things in that folder without affecting your installed games. However, much of it will be re-downloaded if you ever make changes to your install. The next update could cause it (but might not...). It doesn't always happen and I believe I know why, but I'll let danpaul88 explain this just in case I have it wrong.

 

Don't delete that ttfs folder though, because it likely has stuff that is used by TSR (but if you do, then it will probably just re-download itself). And you know how the program files folders work haha.

 

One way that I save space is by deleting system restore points. Only do this if you don't need them (most people don't). If you don't know how, go to Computer Properties (right click in a "my computer" or "This PC" window where your drives are listed and click properties. When the new window opens, click "System Protection" on the left pane. When the next small window opens, make sure that your "C:" drive is selected and then click "Configure". From there, you can delete the restore points and turn off system restore completely. It usually defaults to take around 9.5-10 GB of your space. You'll probably need to reboot when finished.

 

Once you've reclaimed that space, decide whether or not your computer needs the ability to hibernate. No? Well, by disabling hibernation (completely) then you can reclaim an amount of drive space equal to the amount of RAM that you have (because hibernate stores the contents of the RAM into a file on the drive). This one is really simple. Open an administrative command prompt and type:

powercfg /h off

After a reboot, hibernation will be disabled and you'll have some more space.

 

After that, I recommend setting a static page file. 4GB is usually fine for most people and I don't recommend exceeding that in your case because of the limited space on your drive. You can do that through the "Computer Properties" page I mentioned earlier. Go there and click "Advanced System Settings" on the left. When the small window appears, in the "Performance" section, click "Settings". In the new window, click the "Advanced" tab, and then under the "Virtual memory" section, click "Change...". Un-tick the box at the top that says something about letting windows automagically manage your page file, and then click the "Custom size" radio button. Enter "4096" in both blanks and then click "Set". When you click OK, it will prompt you to reboot. Go ahead and do that.

 

So by now, you should be getting a good amount of free space, unless you've already done these things before now. There's really only one more thing that I usually do in a cleanup, or when trying to gain back disk space (aside from runnning a defragment, feel free to do that but thats more of a speed thing rather than a "free space" thing).

 

In addition to all of that, I'm actually going to recommend the built-in windows disk cleanup. I'll attach a slightly modified version of it for you to use. All I've done here is change some registry keys to automagically "check" all the OVER 9000 annoying boxes and also add a couple new locations for it to clean. First, merge the .reg file (just double click it), and then run the "setclean" shortcut and verify that all the boxes are checked. Its possible that your system will have a couple of boxes that are associated with new locations that were not in the list when I made this thing. Things change. After that, just run the shortcut that reads "Windows Disk Cleanup" and it will run in automated mode (a built-in feature, not mine) without prompting you in the middle of the process. I use this thing on all the PCs I service and put it on all the ones I sell.

 

Let me know how it goes and if you need any help!

CLEAN.zip

[danpaul88]

C:\Users\Simon\AppData\Roaming\W3D Hub This directory is 160Mb big and all of it seems related to TSR (ttfs is the only sub folder)

This isn't actually created by the launcher, it's the location game.exe writes to for ttfs and a few other things

 

C:\Users\All Users\W3D Hub This directory is a whopping 6.1 Gb big and contains the package cache with all the versions

Indeed, this is where the launcher actually downloads packages to during installation of a game. The files are retained for use in offline repairs, future updates etc. You can safely delete this directory and it won't re-download (most of) the already installed files in there unless it detects that your installation is corrupt during an update or you select the repair option.

 

D:\Program Files (x86)\W3D Hub This is the main directory where al the games are installed, and is 9.30 Gb big (also pretty huge, blame testing)

That's pretty big... but then again, APB is pretty huge these days. You can go into the games/ subfolder and remove any games you're not currently using if you want to, the launcher will detect they're missing next time you launch it and provide appropriate install options again for future use

[simonmaster]

Thanks for the reply guys!

The games folder is that big because of ECW (4GB)

 

My pagefile seems to be located on my D drive, can't save any more space on that, and I regularly run the cleanup (Thanks for that modified version though, much easier)

 

Also, as this is a HP laptop, I have a partition of the SSD that is named recovery image. No space savings on restore points. I deleted the game folders in the package cache, and everything seems to be fine.

 

Regards,

Simon

[Einstein]

If you know how, you can remove that "recovery image" partition and then extend your main one to envelope that space. But if you've never tried that before then I don't recommend it until you've played with it on a test computer. Do it wrong and you're in for a very bad day haha