Solved Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

Almighty1 · Jul 25, 2023

ShamrockRig said:
Im sorry that you had to go and work all that out, I plucked a random exaggerated number, It is a factual number, Or even a real number..so sorry you wasted you're time lol

Work what out? I'm an Astrophysicist and that took 5 seconds. LOL

Bree · Jul 25, 2023

Fabler2 said:
Hmm....

I see the same....

...it's 'permissions'. Instead of typing the full address, work your way down opening each folder in turn in File Explorer, giving yourself permissions as you drill down.

Or do as I did in post #218 and run TreeSizeFree as an administrator, that will have permission to see inside any restricted folder.

Fabler2 · Jul 25, 2023

Bree said:
I see the same....

View attachment 65711

...it's 'permissions'. Instead of typing the full address, work your way down opening each folder in turn in File Explorer, giving yourself permissions as you drill down.

View attachment 65712

Found my error just before you posted. Just blaming the 'age thing' striking again.

Fabler2 · Jul 25, 2023

Seems to be a lot there but as they're not taking any space to speak of they can stay.

Almighty1 · Jul 25, 2023

Bree said:
I see the same....

View attachment 65711

...it's 'permissions'. Instead of typing the full address, work your way down opening each folder in turn in File Explorer, giving yourself permissions as you drill down.

View attachment 65712

Or do as I did in post #218 and run TreeSizeFree as an administrator, that will have permission to see inside any restricted folder.

I was curious what mines would show now so I started from C:\Windows\System32 but I cannot even open config as double clicking on config doesn't have any response.

ShamrockRig · Jul 25, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Work what out? I'm an Astrophysicist and that took 5 seconds. LOL

The thing that took you 5 seconds, Although if you didn't need to work it out im unsure what you were doing for those 5 seconds lol! Yeah not everyone is an AstroMan so yeah, most people would work that out, Apologies for not being up to you're IQ standard but no need to try and make others feel stupid. All bow down to the superior.

Almighty1 · Jul 25, 2023

ShamrockRig said:
The thing that took you 5 seconds, Although if you didn't need to work it out im unsure what you were doing for those 5 seconds lol! Yeah not everyone is an AstroMan so yeah, most people would work that out, Apologies for not being up to you're IQ standard but no need to try and make others feel stupid. All bow down to the superior.

LOL, that was not the intention, sorry you took it the wrong way....

Fabler2 · Jul 25, 2023

Almighty1 said:
I was curious what mines would show now so I started from C:\Windows\System32 but I cannot even open config as double clicking on config doesn't have any response.

View attachment 65717

You need these settings in folder options,

Almighty1 · Jul 25, 2023

Fabler2 said:
You need these settings in folder options,

View attachment 65718

Even though I did a in-place repair install on July 21, 2023. These are my settings which I have never changed anytime within the last year.

Bree · Jul 25, 2023

Almighty1 said:
I was curious what mines would show now so I started from C:\Windows\System32 but I cannot even open config as double clicking on config doesn't have any response.

Do you have Hyper-V installed? I'll be willing to bet that you do.

I only get that prompt to gain permanent access to a folder on a machine without Hyper-V. If you have installed Hyper-V even your installed Windows is virtualised, just another VM running above the Hypervisor. That seems to have a few unexpected consequences, such as this one.

Almighty1 · Jul 25, 2023

Bree said:
Do you have Hyper-V installed? I'll be willing to bet that you do.

I only get that prompt to gain permanent access to a folder on a machine without Hyper-V. If you have installed Hyper-V even your installed Windows is virtualised, just another VM running above the Hypervisor. That seems to have a few unexpected consequences, such as this one.

Yes but I fixed the problem, basically:
I had it to change Hidden files and folders to "Don't show hidden files, folders, or drives",
checked the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
then apply

then after that
change Hidden files and folders to show,to Show hidden files, folders, or drives",
unchecked the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
then apply

and then I got the prompt and back in business:

same problem with systemprofile but the same method did not work. What's strange is I had Hyper-V installed even the first time this thread was first available and it worked fine. Got it working by adding myself to the Security of the folder.

MilesAhead · Jul 25, 2023

Bree said:
Apparently mine have 0 bytes of disk space allocated for all 1,848 of them

IIRC the root folder contents is part of the file system structure whereas subfolders are stored as files. Right clicking on either does not show the overhead, just the total size of contained files. With NTFS there are MFTs that have information about files. I have forgotten how they are organized but there are search engines that only work with NTFS file system because they search the MFTs rather than indexing the disk volume. Very fast. But my point is giving the size of the outside of the measuring cup would only confuse the issue. Unless you are doing disk partition and file system manipulation you only care about the size of files. But of course the subfolders store the info someplace. It just makes it non-obvious how much overhead is involved.