Freeing up Hard Drive Space?.

[Saltyseadog]

After installing update 13 on Tuesday everything is working well. Better graphics and smoother operation very noticeable on my install although being at present circa 12kly from the bubble on a long term exploration jaunt in my fleet carrier. I noticed today while doing some regular security upkeep jobs that even after emptying my recycle bin, deleting cookies etc etc I was still around 35gb more in my used hard drive space. Thinking it may have something to do with the new update but unsure I started to check my "C" drive.

My PC OS is Windows 10 all up to date and my "C" drive is a 1TB Samsung SSD 970 EVO. Checking it for Elite Dangerous and Frontier Development entries with hidden folders checked I found the following.

In the opening screen in my "C" drive I have a Games folder with various sub folders containing 74gb dating from 4/3/17, the launcher version 0.4.6568.0 installed on 15/4/19

In my Program Files (X86) I have a launcher version 0.4.6725.0 dated 9/8/22 and holding 52MB

In my Users folder under Local - Frontier Developments I have a folder with various sub folders holding 87MB and created on 9/3/17

Also in my Users folder - Local, is a Frontier_Developments folder holding 70gb consisting of ED Launch.exe 0.4.6725.0 created on 9/8/22. a second ED Launch.exe 0.4.6568 created on 13/4/21 plus a Logs folder a Products folder and a specs folder.

In my Users folder - Roaming, is a Frontier Developments folder containing an ED folder with an Options folder inside that created on 9/3/17 containing 72bytes.

Not being very PC technical myself, does this all seem correct?. Perhaps it might be okay to delete 1 or 2 of the older launchers for example but as the space used is negligible it is hardly worth it. Just wanted a second opinion really.

 

[Rochester]

If you don’t uninstall older versions of ED when updating then you will acquire some duplication of files, here or there, especially if you have say, EDH, EDO, or the older demos, training missions etc, they can still be there.

In many instances its negligible, but it does add up over time, if space is a premium it could mean some house cleaning is in order. But you must be careful.

Don’t try and wipe random files/folders, it’s best to just wipe everything if your not technical. The only two folders you need to hold on to (although not mandatory) is your key bindings and explored systems data.

Loosing those won’t affect your game, just means you’re going to have to re-map your keys, also you’ll loose any reference to stars you have visited, but it’s not the end of the world if you scrub them too,

Basically find those and back them up in another folder. Then paste them back in afterwards.

Then go to the launcher and use the uninstall function - top right drop down options. That should clear all files.

It it’s doesn’t find all FD files then do a manual uninstall too via Windows systems.

Then just install the game version you want from the launcher. If your installer is gone too, don’t worry as that is available on your account page with FD Support.

All your profile elements, game status etc will still be there, as that’s saved on the cloud.

There is a page on the FD Support webpage. I would advise reading that first as it is very useful, FD Support will also help if needed if you run into any weird bugs.

Thread 'Odyssey 10 Ungrade from Launcher will not complete'
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/odyssey-10-ungrade-from-launcher-will-not-complete.598076/

 

[Morbad]

What products are installed? Odyssey itself is about 50GB, excluding any logs. Horizons is smaller, but last time I installed it was in the ballpark of 20GB.

 

[Saltyseadog]

What products are installed? Odyssey itself is about 50GB, excluding any logs. Horizons is smaller, but last time I installed it was in the ballpark of 20GB.

In the Games folder on the opening screen in drive "C" I have a folder with Elite Dangerous-64 of 22.3gb, another with Elite Dangerous Odyssey-64 of 49.6gb and one called Combat Tutorial Demo of 1.55gb. meanwhile in the Users>Local>Frontier_Developments folder I have a Products folder with Elite Dangerous-64 with 19.8gb and Elite Dangerous Odyssey-64 with 49.9gb but no Combat Tutorial entry. Are these the same or have I somehow got a double entry?.

 

[alexzk]

If you bound F10 in game for anything ....as bonus it does screenshots. Once awhile ago I found 120 Gb of BMP files unexpected because of this.
It is somewhere in user/pictures or so.

Also windows itself keeps backups since install day in folder with name of 3 words hidden. I think it was blue link to click somewhere to clean that or you can give urself permissions as admin and clean it manually (may kill windows ). I can't be more specific as I don't use Windows for 10 years already.

 

[Morbad]

In the Games folder on the opening screen in drive "C" I have a folder with Elite Dangerous-64 of 22.3gb, another with Elite Dangerous Odyssey-64 of 49.6gb and one called Combat Tutorial Demo of 1.55gb. meanwhile in the Users>Local>Frontier_Developments folder I have a Products folder with Elite Dangerous-64 with 19.8gb and Elite Dangerous Odyssey-64 with 49.9gb but no Combat Tutorial entry. Are these the same or have I somehow got a double entry?.

Yes, that sounds like a duplicate install. You should figure out what the launcher you use is pointing to, uninstall the old launcher, and delete the older product directories. You have at least 70GB of redundant data.

 

[Saltyseadog]

Problem solved. In light of your replies and going through all the various drive "C" entries again this morning it seems that at some time in 2017 Windows 10 in its infinite wisdom installed ED into the designated Games folder in drive "C" instead of in the appropriate folder in my Users>Local folder resulting in me having an extra 70+gb entry. Anyway there were no options / starchart folders in that Games entry. Anyway as an insurance I copied the folder with the binds options etc to my desktop then I just deleted the whole 70+gb thinking if it goes wrong I can just reinstall from Frontier as mentioned by Rochester. After doing that I rebooted my PC and opened EDO which opened normally and all my binds, graphics, settings etc are still there. It seems that the entry in the Games folder was not even being used just 70+gb of deadweight. Anyway it is gone now and thank you all for the advice.