Massive Disk Usage

[bdiesel]

All,

My PC has been running low on disk space, so I started looking at removing stuff that isn't used.

I found the following:

c:/ProgramData/National Instruments/    - 22.7GB

c:/National Instruments Downloads/    - 22GB

c:/Program Files(x86)/National Instruments/   - 19.3GB

I am comfortable that I can delete the Downloads, but why so much stuff in ProgramData?

Bruce

[crossrulz]

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@bdiesel wrote:

I am comfortable that I can delete the Downloads, but why so much stuff in ProgramData?

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I believe that C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\MDF\ProductCache is where all of the installers are "cached" on your computer for when you build installers.  This is done so you don't have to keep inserting disks in order to build the installers with Runtime Engine, DAQmx, etc.

[bdiesel]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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@bdiesel wrote:

I am comfortable that I can delete the Downloads, but why so much stuff in ProgramData?

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I believe that C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\MDF\ProductCache is where all of the installers are "cached" on your computer for when you build installers.  This is done so you don't have to keep inserting disks in order to build the installers with Runtime Engine, DAQmx, etc.

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This folder was 5G on my machine, so ProgramData still taking up 15G - crazy!!

[RavensFan]

Google  "WinDirStat".

Nice little program I run from time to time when I want to see what files are taking up space on a hard drive.

[MichaelBalzer]

Diskitude is also handy for visualising disk usage, if circles are more your thing.

[rolfk]

The other folder which likely takes up a lot of space is C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\Update Service\Installers.

Here all the installers get placed which have been downloaded by NI Update Service. Some of this might be redundant with packages stored in the MDF cache but I'm pretty sure that this does not apply for everything/most.

Deleting all this won't make LabVIEW not work anymore, except when you build applications or DLLs you suddenly will be prompted to insert media for all kind of components that you can't provide at all as the builder can be very picky about the exact same version and name tag and won't be usually happy with just about any installation media with a similar component package.

I resorted to moving the MDF/Product Cache to a different partition and add a softlink to that location in the according ProgramData folder. If I need the packages for building an application I simply have to make sure that the partition is mounted.