Question about Microsoft SQL Server

[ccardimon]

I have the MadPak that contains Flare, Analyzer, Mimic, Echo, Lingo, Contributor, and Capture.

With which of these applications, if any, is the screen grab of Microsoft products associated?

MSSQL.png

[RamonS]

I know that Flare/Analyzer user SQL Compact. If it is 3.5 or 4.0 I don't know. You also have some version of SQL 2012 installed, which also installs a bunch of SQL 2008 (R2) components, just so to make it as confusing as possible. That is also where the VisualStudio Shell comes from, which is the customized UI portion for MSSQL Management Studio. The rest are the various versions of the C++ runtime and it is hard to tell which one of those is used by what application.

[ccardimon]

I guess I can leave SQL Compact alone and start deleting this other stuff one at a time. No idea why they're here at all.

[RamonS]

Are you running low on drive space? If not, I'd suggest turning only the SQL Services off and leaving the stuff in place. That will make it easier to get it back in case on app needs it. If you want to uninstall, then pick "Microsoft SQL Server 2012" first. That should be the big fat gorilla install with way over 1GB in size. After whacking that one reboot and see what is left. It typically takes bunch of stuff with it.

[ccardimon]

Are you running low on drive space? If not, I'd suggest turning only the SQL Services off and leaving the stuff in place. That will make it easier to get it back in case on app needs it. If you want to uninstall, then pick "Microsoft SQL Server 2012" first. That should be the big fat gorilla install with way over 1GB in size. After whacking that one reboot and see what is left. It typically takes bunch of stuff with it.

Yes. Low on drive space.

[RamonS]

In that case uninstalling unneeded apps is a good move, but you can also safely whack everything in these folders (a few files might be locked)
C:\Windows\Minidump
C:\Windows\Prefetch (Windows will fill in a few files soon after, that is OK...if you have an SSD you do not have that folder)
C:\Windows\Temp
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files (this is on Win7)
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache (this is on Win 8.1)

You can also ditch all *.log files in C:\Windows and delete any folder that has a file name like 3d5g5ff37e698ab3d... that happens to hang around in the root of the C: drive. The log files are usually not that large, the wonky folders are leftovers from installs. But delete the folders with the wonky names only in the root. You will see them in other places, do not delete those (those folders are for other stuff, not stale installers).
The last two folder mentioned above also contain cookies, Windows will ask you if you want to delete them, I recommend selecting No.

For all that you need to enable viewing hidden and system files.
If you have an nVidia graphics card you can also look in C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver and yank out all but the most recent folder. NVidia keeps all the old driver packages in place, which is nice if you ever need to go back, but after a while that gunk just piles up.

Follow that up with a Disk Cleanup from within the File Explorer and complete with a defrag. If you want a real defrag use MyDefrag to do the job, but it will take a while....and don't defrag if you use an SSD. The performance increase is negligible and it will only subject the SSD to a lot of read/write operations.

I suggest that you first pull an image from the entire disk. I use Macrium Reflect which is free for personal use, for everything else I assume the Windows backup might be fine as well if it still is available on your Windows version.

I did that cleanup on my disk and it freed up 11 GB.

[ccardimon]

Thanks, RamonS! Does MadCap use any of the Microsoft Visual C++ applications?