MSN Messenger 8 bloat

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Mutly

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#6623 10-Feb-2006 08:43

Has anyone else noticed that MSN Messenger 8 creates an 8GB file in their profile called:

C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger\*****@msn.com\SharingMetadata\Working\SimilarityTable_2

I asked MS about this, and they said if I didn't like it to uninstall Messenger... I assume this is for the shared folders function, but it remains even if this is turned off.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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#28133 10-Feb-2006 09:08

Wow! Now, this is something on the large side. Even for shared folders this wouldn't be necessary use of space if there's nothing to be share.

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freitasm

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#28135 10-Feb-2006 09:17

Actually, just looked closely on this... First right-click the file and check properties. It should be using very little space on disk - in my case only 1MB.

There is a blog post about this on the MSN Blog. Look for "Just where are my Sharing Folders, anyways?" in the Inside Windows Live Messenger Blog and there's an explanation there:

"Q2: I looked at this hidden directory, and it's taking up 8GB of disk space! No wonder I'm out of room!
A2: Sorry, we're not the disk space hog you thought we were. There's a file that reportedly takes up 8GB of disk space, but it's actually a sparse file that only uses about 1MB of actual space on disk. (The rest of it is just a bunch of zeros - think of it as being highly compressed.) You might even see this file go away completely in later releases."

And the MSDN has an explanation for a sparse file...

So, there you go, not that evil really...

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