How do I find if some libraries are still needed?

Hi,

Let us see if there is something that can be moved. Please send a screenshot of Treesize on C drive.

TreeSize Free | JAM Software (jam-software.com)

Perhaps Sumit (Volunteer Moderator)") can suggest some files for deletion after you provide the output from TreeSize, but a more permanent solution is to get a larger hard drive. Although doing this is a bit more difficult for laptops than for desktops, it really isn't very difficult for most laptops.

Either clone the existing drive to the new one or image the existing drive and restore the image to the new drive. The software you're already using to backup your laptop may include this functionality.

What is the make and model of your laptop and what software are you using to do your backups?

The laptop is an IBM(Lenovo) Thinkpad W520. A real good one, even today.

I did change the HDD, it is now a SSD. It really gave the old girl new life.

The value is that it has the docking station & I/O, the motherboard I/O, display, speed, memory and DVD/HDD carriage that we really use to advantage.

If there was a replacement for this configuration, I'd buy in a minute.

It runs Windows 7. I tried to convert but I couldn't get the drivers.

And yes a larger HDD would solve my problem, but perhaps deleting legacy libraries that are no longer used would buy me some time to redo our workflow and do things differently.

Change bad ;-)

I'll find this Treesize and send the output shortly.

I do appreciate your help.

Mike

I have a critical laptop that is well backed up and is running fine. The only problem is the HDD is pretty much consumed. I have removed all the things I know I don't want or need. Still about 50% of the capacity is Windows Redistributables and other Windows bits with dates back to when I bought this machine. I added the header "last used on" and there is no data.

Is there a means to determine if these components are still needed? Are they referenced by any current programs?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Yes, you do need them.

Read this information about them:

Why Are There So Many “Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables ...

Any additional versions of the Visual C++ Redistributable you see on your system were installed along with some program that required it. When a developer codes in a specific version of Visual C++, the code libraries for that version must also be present on the user’s system for the application to run. That means that, for example, if a developer used Visual C++ 2005 (or Visual Studio 2005) to create a program you’re installing, you can expect to see the Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable installed on your system along with the program.

Cheers.

The TreeSize output will be informative.

BTW, how did you conclude that "about 50% of the capacity is Windows Redistributables and other Windows bits"?

If you're referring to Visual C++ Redistributables, there may be quite a few of these (my Win 7 system has 16) but they don't actually take up a lot of room (assuming that the "size" reported in Control Panel > Programs and Features is at least close to correct, those 16 redistributables take less than 123 MB).

If the bulk of the space on your drive is taken by "other Windows bits," however, that may be a different story altogether.

My observation isn't unique about the size of Visual C++ Redistributables. The following (emphasis added) is from https://www.ghacks.net/2017/04/10/microsoft-visual-c-redistributable-information/

Note: before you start, consider creating a backup of the system so that you can restore the system if you run into issues removing installed redistributables from the operating system. The worst that can happen however is that programs refuse to run.

Programs that you remove from your system won't remove the redistributable, even if it was installed during program installation. The reason for this behavior is that other programs may rely on the redistributable as well.

Removing these installations comes down to trial and error, as there is no easy way of linking programs to redistributable versions.

One option that you have is to compare installation dates of the redistributable installations with program installations. If you find matching dates, you can assume that those are linked, and that the redistributable is still needed.

If you don't find matching dates, you cannot conclude however that the redistributable is no longer needed, as programs that you installed afterwards may require it as well.

You could try and remove the oldest versions of each year first, and see how that goes. It may take a lot of testing to get it right though, and may not be worth it if you consider that all redistributable installations combined use a couple of hundred Megabytes tops when installed.

It may be better to keep all versions installed just to be on the safe side of things, and avoid any issues with programs refusing to start after the removal.