Bloat discussion earlier today

Son Goku

No lover of dogma
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Well some people and I were discussing the sizes of driver files, game demoes, and what not earlier today, when I mentioned the obvious, aka Windows XP SP2 and how big it is, vs SP1... I also hinted at "anyone want to guess how big Service Pack 3 for Windows XP might be?" and that SP3 for Windows NT 4.0 was only 17.5 MB...

Someone said they're disgusted that winXP with SP1 slip streamed and updated to SP2 takes 3 GBs of hard drive space... Needless to say, I remembered back to discussions about just how bloated win95 was when it took about 75 MB of hard drive space (course people had much smaller drives then)... So, figured I might create a thread to mention some of the land mark increases in system resources I remember some of these different Windows versions taking... I'll start with MS DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1...

- MS DOS 6.22 took about 5 MB of HD space, and win3.1 22 MB as I remember...

- win95 was about 75 MB of HD space

- Comming out around then, I seem to remember winNT 4.0 was about 110 MB of HD space wasn't it?

- win98 was over 200 MB if I remember correctly

- win2k and winXP taking a coupla gigs on the HD

Memory wise:

- DOS 6.22 and win3.1: 8 MB was more then enough and 4 MB was sufficient

- win95 one really wanted at least 16 MB

- win98 about 32 MB or more Same was said for NT 4 initially, though from experience my 40 MB began growing cramped around the time SP2 and SP3 came out for it... In the end, 64 MB was more like it for winNT 4

- win2k at least 256 MB recommended (though 128 MB is the minimum requirement, and runs rather slow from my prior experience)

- With winXP, 256 MB might be OK, though most people I've heard recommend 512 MB these days...

Along with this is the ever growing size of fix packs from one gen of Windows to another (a 260 MB SP would have been unheard of, even 2 years ago)...

Anyone else want to take a further trip down memory lane, and relate their experiences wrt this?
 
I don't think hard drive space is an issue anymore ... and hasn't been for some time. I'd also like to point out that XP runs fine with 128MB. Only when you decide to start using your PC for more than just the normal e-mai, spreadsheet, document do you really need a lot of memory. I remember running XP for months with only 128MB and it was perfectly fine. If you are serious about photo editing, gaming, etc ... you are bound to want something more than just decent though. Also I remember the network install for SP1 was around 130+MB. I forget how big SP2 was ... but I thought it was smaller? Also ... this discussion might fit better in one of the tech forums? or not.
 
What proportion of the file size increases would associate with progress as opposed to sloppy programmers exploiting massive HDD space?
 
Heavens forbid not... Microsoft service packs are cumulative...so SP2 will include all the fixes in SP1 and more It's, well I'll show

E:\users\Son_Goku\Service_Pack>dir
Volume in drive E has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 5435-8612

Directory of E:\users\Son_Goku\Service_Pack

08/09/2004 04:35 PM <DIR> .
08/09/2004 04:35 PM <DIR> ..
08/09/2004 03:24 PM 278,927,592 WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe
1 File(s) 278,927,592 bytes
2 Dir(s) 4,724,655,104 bytes free

E:\users\Son_Goku\Service_Pack>

Also, size of downloads can be an issue for those not blessed with the lattest and greatest in network bandwidth, hehe

I would have to say from personal experience that win2k ran like crap with only 128 MB RAM. Forget fancy programs, just the OS by itself was slower then with 192 MB. I couldn't stand it...then again I'm a stickler for performance.

I was an MSDN subscriber and had win2k back when it was in release candidate status. At the time I had 192 MB RAM (from NT 4 days). The 64 MB DIMM went bad (mentioned something about that in another thread) and got stuck with 128 MB... The difference was noticeable. Even with email and what not, it was more then I like to see... Perhaps some peeps can live with it, but I would have to disagree on this. Peeps also started recommending 256 MB with the thing.

As to disk space, peeps do have more, (albeit it isn't unlimited, and people can still need to upgrade their HD from time to time). There is another side to it though, aka bloat vs code efficiency/optimization :D All the extra lines of code can also leave more to be debugged and potentially patched latter on...

BTW, I was thinking of putting this in the joke forum instead, as I was taking a jab at Microsoft, based on the conv some peeps were having :D It started when someone was wondering if they should poke fun at the size of ATI's last driver update...and another person having mentioned about a 133 MB "simple" game demo. Just found it all all funny when thinking down memory lane and remembering how peeps thought win95 was a pig... :)
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

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