Windows 7 forum: Incorrect free space reporting on c drive

Folk have posted about this many times and it's always found with tools like TREESIZE and such. There's also the issue of how GB is not ONE BILLION BYTES and it throws folk for a loop as they try to hunt down why it's wrong.

Here's a question. Has Microsoft missed the mark by leaving these issues in place?
Bob

Drives folks to post like this. So far, anyone that has gone looking has found the space and what is using it. That's not so much a problem but are you using tools like TREESIZE and more to go find it?

My question is more about what I'm seeing today. Folk are getting upset by Windows, that is, after all this time you continue to see questions like this because of how this OS works. Nothing truly wrong with that but are we expecting better?

Again, seek and you'll eventually find the space. There are many folders that hide from our usual byte counters. Often I have to boot a LiveCD called Ubuntu to see the hidden stuff.
Bob

Bob,

In the case above that you are referring to and in all the other cases that i have read about, the problem is the other way around.i.e. the used space shown by the drive is larger than the total size of all the folders in it.

In my case the problem is that c drive says 26 GB is used but if i check the size of all the folders, its 29.1 GB.

I am already aware of all the ways my drive space could be eaten up and i take the necessary measures to keep a check on it. But this problem is upside down.

The only thing i don't like about windows is the way the updates are designed to work. They leave a lot of files in critical system directories which over a period of time eat up a considerably huge amount of disk space and are generally not easy to get rid off.

I and others write about using TREESIZE to go find it. And there are plenty of other discussions about the mismatches.

Be sure to backup what you can't lose before using chkdsk.
Bob

I missed that. Such upgrades do chew up more space and can inherit odd file system issues.

If you read more, you see clean installs are ... cleaner.

As to the issues at hand, I wondered if you felt it was time for Microsoft to stop reporting BINARY BYTES as in no other system is Giga another number other than 1,000,000,000. Leaving this in has caused so much lost time for folk.

Isn't it time to ban Binary Bytes?
Bob