We have officially released ShowSize 5. You now get the latest version ShowSize 5.0.2.2 when you buy ShowSize. Moreover, you get additional features when you buy ShowSize 5-user-license or ShowSize. For more details, please see Compare Editions.
The new features are described on ShowSize 5 page.
The trial version is still old. We have not yet updated it to version 5 but we are working on it.
Scans for folder sizes take time. It depends on how big the folder is in terms of number of folders and files deep within it. If you start scanning a big disk to add up the file and folder sizes, it may contain hundreds of thousands of folders and millions of files. You don’t want to sit there waiting for a full disk scan when all you are interested in is a specific folder and its subfolders. Neither do you want to use the mighty Task Manager to stop a wrong scan started by mistake on a big folder. Beware of disk utilities that don’t give you any way to cancel a scan. Such utilities appear to hang because they often don’t display how the scan is progressing. It takes quite an effort to build such features that give useful feedback. No wonder, you often reach for the Task Manager to stop such programs.
ShowSize is smart software. You can precisely go to scan the folder that you are really interested in. And, if by mistake, you start a scan on a big folder and then change your mind, you don’t have to grit your teeth and sit through till it completes. You can simply cancel it by clicking on a Cancel button.
There are many other time saving features. You can have different copies of ShowSize running on different folders. The new ShowSize 5 has a special feature for 5-licenses-or-more that allows to save a scan result and then later examine it on any computer (even one that is not connected to that location). Get the smart software that is designed and optimized for convenience. Just scan a big folder with ShowSize and then do the scan with any of other such utilities. You will know the difference. Talk to one of our customers and they will tell you why they prefer to use ShowSize.
Read more about better software design of ShowSize in other articles under Why Use ShowSize?.
We are glad to announce that a new version 5.0.2 of ShowSize is in pre-release. It is only available to the paid users of ShowSize (not PE) from the special user support area at support.showsize.com.
ShowSize 5 officially supports Vista.
The major new features of ShowSize 5 are described in this note.
ShowSize PE 5 is not ready yet but we are working on it and will release it soon. Please watch this Blog.
I will attempt to explain why we had to discontinue the “Unused files report” on Windows Vista and why I advise not to use it even on earlier Windows systems now.
Vista breaks the “Unused Files” feature for NTFS:
On Vista, by default the “last access date” of the files are not updated on NTFS file systems. Microsoft did this to improve Vista performance on NTFS systems.
This means that the above information is useless for all the files on NTFS volumes. There is a registry tweak possible so that Vista starts updating the “last access date” of files. But even then the information won’t be useful for quite some time. For example, if you switch on this feature now you will have to wait for at least 30 days of use to get a report that shows files not used in last 30 days. Hence, it’s not a good solution as there is no way for ShowSize to determine when the tweak was made. In other words, one can never rely on Unused column or the Unused Files report. Besides this tweak might run into performance issues on Vista.
Corporate/LAN users, beware: Moreover, if many Vista systems are using files on a shared NTFS volume, some will update the last access date and some won’t depending on whether they were fixed with the registry tweak. So on a shared volume you can never be sure if the Unused Files report is useful at all.
THE HARD DECISION THAT WE MADE: Hence, it’s not possible to find a decent solution to this problem. We can at most give warning messages on Vista for NTFS volumes. But we can never be sure on shared volumes. Hence, in the newer ShowSize 5, we have entirely dropped this Unused Files report and the Used column in all the reports on Windows Vista.
This article is old. The new ShowSize 5 natively supports Windows Vista.
Important points about running ShowSize 4 on Vista:
Details of running ShowSize 4 on Windows Vista:
(In particular, please see the last point on Unused Files, marked in red)
Please look at the following information only if you want to run ShowSize 4 on Vista. Paid users can instead get the latest pre-release version 5 from the user support area.
If you can’t run ShowSize at all (it stops immediately) then a DEP setting can fix it. This is explained in the following steps.
There can be two solutions:
If the problem you are facing is related to DEP then the problem will go away.
On Windows Vista, you need to run ShowSize as administrator to install the above menus (a Tools operation). After that, you can exit and run it as normal.
On Vista, by default the “last access date” of the files are not updated on NTFS file systems. Microsoft did this to improve Vista performance on NTFS systems.
This means that the above information is useless for all the files on NTFS volumes. There is a registry tweak possible so that Vista starts updating the “last access date” of files. But even then the information won’t be useful for quite some time. For example, if you switch on this feature now you will have to wait for at least 30 days of use to get a report that shows files not used in last 30 days. Hence, it’s not a good solution as there is no way for ShowSize to determine when the tweak was made. In other words, one can never rely on Unused column or the Unused Files report. Besides this tweak might run into performance issues on Vista.
Corporate/LAN users, beware: Moreover, if many Vista systems are using files on a shared NTFS volume, some will update the last access date and some won’t depending on whether they were fixed with the registry tweak. So on a shared volume you can never be sure if the Unused Files report is useful at all.
THE HARD DECISION THAT WE MADE: Hence, it’s not possible to find a decent solution to this problem. We can at most give warning messages on Vista for NTFS volumes. But we can never be sure on shared volumes. Hence, in the newer ShowSize 5, we have entirely dropped this Unused Files report and the Used column in all the reports on Windows Vista.
Yes, you can put on the option to display values in bytes in the General page of the Options screen.
ShowSize has been designed carefully for optimized performance. It is important to understand the following concepts when you use such a program that can produce huge reports:
Great capacity for huge listings and their printout:
ShowSize uses virtual list technology to accommodate even millions of items in the reports without using too much memory.
Most of the operations are cancelable: Such large capacity is useless without an ability to cancel at any time. We have taken extra pains to ensure that almost all the time consuming operations can be canceled in ShowSize. This is for your convenience so that you don’t get locked up in a long operation if you decide to change your mind after starting a scan or report.
Disk scan data is cached
ShowSize remembers the files list and attributes in a special cache and reuses it till you move to a folder outside the scanned data or till you specifically refresh it. Hence, when drilling down into the reports, you will see that the reports are filled up fast! This is especially noticeable when using large drives or slow network locations. Moreover, ShowSize uses a disk based cache so that it can now display even millions of items in the lists.
Superior design, higher speed
ShowSize has been designed with considerations for speed. Many disk utilities list all the drives and their folders in the left pane. While this might be more convenient, it is certainly slower, specially on systems with large numbers of drives and folders. ShowSize has been designed to show only a single drive’s contents in the left folder. For network locations, it even saves more time by making the network location the root of the left pane. Moreover, even that can be switched off for slower network drives. Please see Tips on working with slow network drives.
Best of all, you can start more copies of ShowSize each working on a different drive or main folder.
No memory leaks
ShowSize has been thoroughly tested for memory leaks. When you go for a file system utility, you should test it thoroughly to see if it has memory leaks. A good test for such programs would be to run them for a while and repeatedly scan big drives. If you have a resource monitoring program turned on, you should see your system running out of resources gradually. Finally, you might see that many other programs have stopped working and a Windows message appears, “You are dangerously low on resources.” Beware of such programs which have memory leaks.
We appreciate all the feedback! More and more network administrators are finding ShowSize useful, mainly because of its speed and flexibility. There are many who are using the command line options for batch operations. Many users have given suggestions to improve the product. We are happy that we have been able to accommodate most of these suggestions. ShowSize will continue to get better and better because we give more importance to the feedback of the actual users rather than making cosmetic changes to the product. We hope you see the point and spread the word. Thank you for all the support!
Read more about better software design of ShowSize in other articles under Why Use ShowSize?.
Good question. The reason you came to see ShowSize indicates that for some reason, you are not satisfied with this other utility. Here are some distinct advantages of ShowSize:
Designed for optimized performance:
Please read all about it in a separate topic ShowSize is fast!
Software focused on size reports: Don’t settle for a do-all file manager utility that can’t do full justice to the task of reporting the folder sizes in all the different formats that we support. If you think a little, you’ll get the idea. It’s plain common sense. It is the difference between going to a general consultant and to a specialist.
If you are serious about knowing your disk space better, go for the specialist. Use software that is dedicated to reporting the folder sizes. See what difference a “focused” utility like ShowSize makes. And, if you continue using it, please buy the licensed version to support our efforts.
Bonus utility features and reports other than Folder Sizes:
Read more about better software design of ShowSize in other articles under Why Use ShowSize?.
