Thank you sir! Always wanted to do this.

Try this too:

cd /d %windir%\assembly
attrib -r -h -s desktop.ini
mkdir gacview
move desktop.ini gacview
attrib +s gacview
attrib +r +h +s gacview/desktop.ini

Keeps your old view around (just in case).

Your therapist needs to stop you from looking on your computer where you aren't supposed to look!  Curiosity killed the cat you know.

This may seem really stupid, but I was wondering why you would even want to use Explorer c:\windows\assembly directory... Im just curious, and also, what IS this directory for?  Im researching everything c:\windows (beginner tech)

thanks!

Does it realy need to be so big. i have  my windows folder over 1.5 gig now this makes me feel bad on my smal computor. can i clean somethings out of there. it is 158 mb and the M.net folder is 127mb

What is this fore..

Yeah I wish Mangomama, since mine is 456 MB (479,015,039 bytes). :(

Yeah i wish both Mangomama and Will.. since mine is 2,1 GB.. :( and the WINDOWS\Installer get close to 2GB too :( with the pagefile of 1,5 GB and the hibernation file 1 GB i just blew off 7 GB for 'nothing'.

btw: anyone knows if it is safe to delete the file from Windows\Installer ?

Thanks

Re C:\WINDOWS\assembly

Is the DreamweaverCtrls.dll file supposed to be in this folder so that Dreamweaver can work with ASP.NET

I am having issues with DataGrid in Dreamweaver 8 while using ASP.NET 2.0

1. Open Regedit, browse to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion.

2. Add a REG_DWORD value named 'DisableCacheViewer'; set it to 1

3.             open an Explorer window and type in C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\

If your are only curious of what is in the folder,use the IceSword.The size can be set in the way of resize cache.

Can´t you just compress the damn thing ( mine is "only" 231 Megs, but I´m sure thinking about compressing the annoying "little" bastard ) ? Does anybody know how it would affect performance ? Oh, by the way, is .NET really worth it ? Can it really do something that amazing in order to justify the allocation of so much disk space ? Since my good old days of DOS programming, I always thought that MicroSh.t development tools are really buggy ( not to mention slower, chubby and some more adjectives I can´t really remember right now ) so I always preferred Borland or other stuff. Can´t we just put a fracking limit to little Bill´s byte hunger ( i.e., limit the size of the pitiful thing ) ?

OK... here goes. My %^$$$% assembly folder is over 27 Gig!!! My entire drive is only 55Gig. I have about 233k space left on my drive to work with!!! I pulled my hair out about 2 weeks ago!!! How is it possible that so much space is waisted with this stupid folder??? Does anyone know if it is safe to purge some of this crap?

Why is this thing hidden.  I came across it doing a Rootkit scan, and I just about wet my pants when the screen filled up.  I was certain I my computer was enslaved by a spammer until I found this column.

Thank you for these postings.

So, can somebody tell us is it safe enough to just compress the /assembly folder ??

I have an old copy of DOS's DR directory tool from PC Magazine. In a DOS window it acceses the entire Assembly directory, no tricks or anything, just good old dos, sure looks different then what expolorer shows....

Try using ExplorerXP... (www.explorerxp.com)

It enables you to view things in ALL folders... even "C:\System Volume Information"!

I am by no close or remote way related to this software. I'm just very happy using it

TILL NOW NO ONE HAS REPLIED IF IT IS SAFE TO DELETE THIS IDIOT c:\windows\assembly folder.

I'm in the same boat, my C: drive is at 0kbs and my c:\windows\assembley folder is 5.4 gbs, it was under 5gbs about 2months ago... really annoying as I managed to free up 1gb last night and now theres nothing...

Please, if somebody can help with this issue, I'm sure many of us will sleep better!

S

I was very annoyed with bad exploring ability of the folder. There is no good way of searching assembly there. I wrote a tool here,

http://gacbrowser.sourceforge.net/

Hope it will solve problem of searching assembly.  also, it removes assemblies with "traced reference problem". I would love to add "backup" option for removed assembly in future..

The 'Assembly' directory is not the only one Explorer screws around with.

It also hides the DLLCache directory so that you can not replace 'system' dlls with different versions - something you sometimes need to do when debugging a customer problem.

One solution to this is to dump Windows Explorer altogether and use a real file manager like the one in Norton NT Tools. Unfortunately Symantec no longer sell this product, but if you can find a copy it works very well ... and gives you a lot of other useful features that Microsoft dont provide.

I use this product 99.9% of the time. (even though it is 12 years old!) The one problem that forces me to use Explorer (temporarily) is when I  need to copy a file and the space in use is close to a 4GB boundary. (In 1996 there was no support for drives larger than 4GB so the app thinks my 120GB drive is full.)

One more warning - if you are one of those strange folks who actually likes to store all their files under 'My Documents', that is also a 'fake' directory ... so you have to navigate to the 'real' directory instead - about 3 levels down from the top ... so not very convenient.

You can also map a drive directly to your GAC and then you'll be able to see the actual directory structure.

Go into command prompt and type:  subst z: %windir%\assembly\gac

I got this info from http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2003/02/25/3006.aspx and am *very* thankful.

^^That was easy!!

Thanks Jelani!

Maybe the growing size of the assembly folder is because of the temp and tmp subfolders.

BTW, assembly is compressed in my system and have no problem (168 MB, but 98.4 compressed).

What about the Installer folder? Can be emptied? If a program needs the installer files, can I provide them when needed or the program will crash? Must I have the installers in this folder 'just in case'?

I just checked the file viewer in InfoFind (http://www.omnicognic.com/) and it displays the structure of [C:\WINDOWS\assembly] and even lets you quickly filter through it. Normally I just use InfoFind for Oracle and SQL Server Database Queries and Reports but it has a number of system utilities and a file viewer too.

Thanks Jelani that is def the easiest way to do it.

Regarding the SUBST command that Jelani suggested, I had to modify mine slightly. This may be because I'm running on x64 (Windows 2008)

My command is subst z: %windir%\assembly\gac_msil

You've all been talking about how Windows Explorer can't view some files/folders such as C:\System Volume Information but if you go to (in Windows Explorer) Tools > Folder Options (click, (window opens)) > View (click) > (in the "Advanced Settings" box) "Hidden files and folders" > "Show hidden files and folders" (click) (then just a bit below that) > "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" (uncheck box) (then a window opens asking if you are sure that you want to show protected operating system files) > (Hit YES!) Then you will be able to see files and folders like "C:\System Volume Information".

I would also like to know why that the "C:\WINDOWS\ASSEMBLY" folder keeps growing I know that the folder and the files it contains has something to do with .NET but what exactly do they do?

I foolishly tried to install Roxio's Creator 2009 and after 5 unsuccessful attempts ended up with a frozen PC.

Upon furter investigation, I discovered that it had loaded 270M of stuff into my Windows\Assembly folder that I presume they need to make their "stuff" work.

After recoving from the freeze, I uninstalled the Roxio crap and decided that I didn't need all that Windows\Assembly stuff hogging up space on my PC.

As everyone who has read your blog knows now, these new files are not visible to the Windows explorer.

I started writing a Visual Basic app that would allow me to delete the new files, but it became more work than I wanted to get into.

Therefore I did as suggested by renaming desktop.ini in the Windows\Assembly folder, copied all the junk files to a CD for safe keeping and then deleted them all.

Thanks, I'm back to where I was before purchase of the useless $100 Roxio Creator 2009.

LOL, I just LOL on somebody thinking about visual basic program to bypass Explorer :D

Get a real file manager and be done with it. (i.e.Total Commanede, Servan Salamnder, etc., etc.)

Mino, that's because you're a C++ Troll.

Vb6 is as good as anything and you can do as much as any language.

sometime slower that's true and something are harder to do (ex.: multi thread)

by the way, I DID made a Vb6 program to show that assembly directory.

in wasn't on purpose, I was doing a search file and directory program, and I notice that the directory count was higher then what windows/property show.

I started to investigate and even applying all the trick said here, there is 2 directory that will NOT be showed... although my Vb6 program does it.

smile...

Alex: I didn't found that box to uncheck, did you applied some registry hack to show it ?

I'm using WinXp Pro

As has been said before, the WINDOWS/assembly directory implements the .NET Global Assembly Cache:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assembly_Cache

It grows every time software is installed that brings along a shared assembly, similar to shared DLLs installed in other system directories.

It may also grow every time that .NET compiles CIL code to native machine code and caches the compiled result (in the NativeImages* subdirectory).

I assume that the NativeImages* subdirectory can be safely deleted (because they can be recreated from the GAC* directory contents), but have not tried this.

This didn't work for me (Win2K).

Try XYplorer (www.xyplorer.com) for direct display.

XYplorer: best of the  best "Windows File Manager and Explorer Replacement"

(...)

XYplorer is a multi-tabbed dual pane file manager for Windows, featuring a powerful file search, a versatile preview, a highly customizable interface, and a large array of unique ways to efficiently automate frequently recurring tasks. It's extremely fast and light, it's innovative, and it's fun!

(...)

if you really want to clean up your hard disk and don't know what you are doing, just use the disk cleanup in

start>programs>accessories>system tools

then run disk defrag

Well knowing what can and can't be whacked is important to me, since

I'm a cheap B@#$@# with 5 daughters and a bunch of flash drive based

netbooks. I've been backing up whole directories from my microscopic

c: to my merely small d: and then putting shortcuts on C: pointing back.

PIA!!!