40 gig, - 500mb partitian, 100+ programs, about 1GB free space

[Gore1FL]

yeah I'm in heaven.... But hey it's only 300 of 1300 PCs...

Yes, I sad in February, I would like to be a Windows System administrator...

Yeah, I'd still say that, but fucking 40GB? Christ on a cross, this is a challenge.

[hobbit709]

1. Figure out what's necessary-dump the rest

Sounds like there's a lot of useless clutter there. I wouldn't doubt that the Temp folders are chock full with the stuff windoze never deletes. My primary partition is 100Gb and I'm using 13.8 of it-9 of that is the complete CS3 suite. That's with about 100 apps on it. Of course, I keep no data on my C: partition. I streamline mine about every two weeks.
I've cleaned all the Temp and Temporary Internet files out of people's computers and get anywhere from 200 MB to over a gig of space.

[Gore1FL]

2. It is a fresh image

I built it in June and finished it (except for one app) on friday. It is about as clean as it can be. It works fine on every PC that has more than a 40GB HD. I run Deep Freeze, so when the PC's reboot, it goes back to a pristine state. The default user profile has been cut from 70-80MB to about 22MB. The real problem is that in 2005 and before they bought too small of hard drives. Amazingly they wanted Vista on these!!! Can you imagine?!?!?

I have an updated app that is coming today that will add another 300-400 MB to the image.

The only real "clutter" is the sheer number of apps required.

My only response at this point is to try to run more of the apps from the server. I may have to zip some of the directories and expand them on use. That'll no-doubt piss someone off.

[hobbit709]

3. Vista-that explains it

I use XP x64.

[Gore1FL]

4. I am using XP pro

They wanted Vista at one point, but it was nixed because of the weak processors and lack of memory on the older PCs.

The problem is too much software, and a lot of them are 200MB-400MB in size. Because there is a 5-year cycle on hardware purchases my driver directory is over three quarters of a gig. Fortunately, I can erase that as one of my four boots in the automated installation process I employ. Another fortunate thing is that the Dell GX260s, GX270s and GX280s with the 40GB drives will be history in 2 years. Unfortunately, I will have more software requests each successive semester, and probably few removals during that time. Each package will likely grow with version changes as well. I can put some stuff out on a server, but I only have about 5 gig to play with on the logical one to put it on, until it too is upgraded--and it handles licensing boot scripts, etc.

I plan to reduce the thaw space from 500MB to 200MB and that will give me 300MB extra--except I still have software that has not arrived that will eat that and probably more when I install it). I may be able to reclaim 200-300MB by removing sample bmps, AVIs, and moving PDFs to the server. I also plan to disable Firefox caching (I have Gbit ethernet internally and fiber connection to the outside, so it won't be too awful--but hardly optimal--especially for the 1000 devices that don't have the HD space limitations). I can probably script the settings to only apply to the crap devices.

It's just ugly, and there is no real way around it, short of buying 300 new devices, or 300 new hard drives to put in machines that are out of warranty and closing in on their expected life cycle.

[hobbit709]

5. Too many apps, not enough space

Does every machine need all these apps and why. Obviously management doesn't have a clue as to system needs. I get that from people all the time. "Why can't I install and run this?" or "Why is everything so slow?" Then I get a blank look when I explain that you can't run Photoshop in XP on a 1GHz machine and only 256Mb RAM.
Somebody once brought me an old IBM laptop with a Pentium II 266MHz, 64Mb RAM that had XP on it. It actually got you to the desktop(after about 15 minutes). I asked why? "They thought it would be more up to date" WTF. All they wanted it for was to write songs and check email. I ended up putting in another 64 Mb of RAM, wiping XP and installing 2000 pro on it, along with OpenOffice and Thunderbird mail. Then it worked reasonably well for what they wanted.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Ha!

You'll love this.

My current employer is populated by more abject techno-morons than I knew existed in one place, *including* the tech guys, who I have finally figured out all got their jobs 'cause they are relatives of higher-ups. Seriously ... every single tech person is either a friend or relative of someone in upper management.

Anyway ...

My immediate boss hired me for one basic reason, my experience with the cable/Internet/phone company. Out of all the applicants for the job, I was the only one who even seemed to know that there were parts inside that little black box there than makes funny sounds sometimes. I'm not the tech support guy, rather the guy my boss calls when something is screwed up before she calls tech support.

Anyway ...

These people have been trying to run XP Pro on ~1.2GHz machines with, wait for it, 128MB of RAM. Just to do the basic function of my job I have to have two tabs on Internet Explorer 7 (shudder) open, a Word document, and Excel with an enormous spreadsheet ... and sometimes PowerPoint. How well you think that performs? :-) And, the other day, my boss said she wanted PhotoShop installed so we could edit some graphics for a plasma display system ... your mention of PhotoShop on a 256MB machine being what made me think of this.

I told her to keep dreaming and continue filing those requests for upgrades.

[hobbit709]

7. Do you have time to get a cup of coffee

Between hitting enter and the time the screen changes?

[RoyGBiv]

8. And down the road for donuts ...

Seriously ... today I was doing something more complicated than usual, started a process working that would take about five seconds on my machine at home, got up, walked across the hall, got a bottle of water, came back, answered the phone and talked for a few minutes ... and done.

It's absurd.

I'd write up a report on how disastrous this is to productivity, but they'd probably expect me to do something about it. All that is entailed in that is well above my pay grade.

[Gore1FL]

9. yep...

the reason is every lab is open to all students for all coursework. Unfortunately the one with the suspect computers is open the longest. This one will have new hardware by the next semester, but the 280's that come from there will replace the older gx260s and gx270s.

I've gotten it to work, but what a freaking fiasco. By the time I make the changes from the first round of testing, It'll be much better. Just the firsefox settings alone allows me to push the page file up to 1.6 GB... I wouldn't want to use it in that condition, but....

This is last year's list: We are getting rid of a few apps, upgraded most of the rest, and added a few more.

Anthropology
Surfer 8.05

Biology
Cn3D
Distance 5.0 – release 2
Evolving 1.0
Rasmol 2.7.3.1
Stella 8.1.4

Business
ACL Network Edition 9.0
Arena 10
Compustat 7.9.14
GARS 12/31/2006
Logware 5.0
Microsoft Project Std 2003
Microsoft Visio Pro 2003
Peachtree Complete 2005

Chemisty
ACD Labs 4.0
Cambridge Structural Database 5.28
Chemdraw Std 9.0
ISIS/Draw 2.5
Mathcad 14
SHELXTL 6.12
SigmaPlot 10.0

Criminology
MicroCase 2006-2007

Education
Adobe Photoshop CS ver 8
Dartfish 4.0.9
DataStudio 4.0.9
DINE Healthy 4.2
HyperStudio 4.5
Inspiration 7.6
MyWorld GIS 3
Photo Story 3
Scratch 1.1
Fine Arts
MDID Image Viewer 2.0.3
VectorWorks Designer 12.5.2

Foreign Language
Atajo 3.0

Geology
EarthBrowser 2.10.6

Math & Computer Science
Algebrator 2.1
Maple 11.01
Mathematica
Matlab 7.5 (2007b )
Simulink 7.0
Image Processing Toolbox 6.0
Mapping Toolbox 2.6
Signal Processing Toolbox 6.8
Wavelet Toolbox 4.1

Music
Acid Pro 4.0f

Political Science
ArcGIS 9.2 sp2
Eviews 6.0
Intercooled Stata 9.0 – 02/06/2007
S-Plus 8
GeoDA 0.9.5-I

Psychology
Amos 7
R 2.5.1

Sociology
N6 6.0

Statistics
Intercooled Stata 9.0 – 02/06/2007
Minitab 15
SAS 9.1.3 SP4
Shazam 10.0
S-Plus 8
SPSS 15

Physics
MultiSim 8.0.38
PC Scope 1.23

Internet Applications
Adobe Reader 8.1
Authorware Player
Citrix Plug-in
Cortona VRML Player 5.1
Cygwin/X 1.5.24-2
Firedoodle 0.6b
Firefox 2.0.0.9
Flash Player 9.0.47.0
GoogleEarth 4.1.7087
InterACT Math Plug-in 5.6.1
Internet Explorer 7.0
Irfan View 4
iTunes 7.5
Java JRE 1.6.1
MathXL Player 4.5.0.2
NJStar Communicator 2.71.7018
QuickTime Player 7.2
RealPlayer 10.5 (6.0.12.1578)
SAMBA
Shockwave Player 10.1r11
SSH Secure Shell 3.2.9 (Telnet/FTP)
Star UMSL
TestGen Plug-in 7.3
WebEx Meeting Manager 7.0.12
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Messenger 5.1

Office Applications
Microsoft Office Pro 2007
Quark Express 6.5.2

Programming Languages
ColdFusion
Eclipse SDK 3.3
Java SDK 1.6
Netbeans IDE 5.5 with J2EE 8.2
SlickEdit 11.02
Visual Studio .NET 2005
(Basic, C++, C#, J#)
MSDN Library
16-Bit Assembly Linker
GLUT 3.7.6

Web Publishing
Dreamweaver MX 2004
Nvu 1.0
Windows Media Encoder 9

Utilities
7-Zip 4.4.2
PDF Creator 0.9.3
Symantec Antivirus 10.1.6.6000
TransMac 6.1

Adaptive Software*
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.1
JAWS 8.0.2173
Kurzweil 3000 10.02
Magic 10.0.885
Read & Write Gold 8
Talking Typing Teacher 1.05
TextALoud 2.014
ToggleMouse 4.5.14
Wynn Reader 4.0
ZoomText 9.1

Faculty Software
CPS 5.01.1054
CPS for PowerPoint 5.01.1054
LanSchool 7.0
Mimio 5.30
Respondus 3.5.3b
SmartBoard 9.7
StudyMate 1.5.5c

Scanner Software
Adobe Photoshop CS
Adobe Image Ready CS
OmniPage SE 2.0
VueScan 8.4

[Gore1FL]

10. So as it turns out...

I managed to save about 2GB by deleting the $NT folders in windows (I do not plan to back anything off), wiping the drivers directory (needed for my sysprep config, but only after the install) and the windows\software distribution\download directory, and moving a couple of apps to the server. I'd have saved 2GB more if I could have moved the MSDN library to a server... I set the pagefile to be a static 1280, that give the users about 1.7 GB of total memory (physical and swap) and allows for 1.7 GB of free space reclaimed at reboot (because of faronics deepfreeze).

One image is ready to go, I've got two more that will be done by the end of next week.

Rock on!