I’d like to tell you about a cool program that I like to use on my administrator workstation. It’s called Folder Size and is available from SourceForge. Below are the installation instructions (available here: http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/using.html ).
- First, make sure you’re running Windows 2000 or XP. Sorry, it doesn’t work in Vista.
- Download the installer (regular 32-bit) (XP x64).
- Run the downloaded file to start the install wizard. It has boring template text, so just keep clicking Next. Typical and Complete installs do the same thing, Custom lets you change where it gets installed.
- Now the Folder Size column is available to Explorer, but Explorer isn’t displaying it yet. Open an Explorer window in Details view.
- Right click on the column headers to see a list of columns you can add. Choose Folder Size.
- Now we can replace the existing Size column with the new Folder Size column. Right click on the column headers and uncheck the Size column. Drag the Folder Size column header to where Size used to be.
- Make this the default view for all folders. Go to Folder Options from the Tools menu. In the View tab, click Apply to All Folders.
If you want to read more about the product, you can do so here: http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/
I’ve used this freebie to quickly determine the size of folders on file servers or to compare folder sizes on two different locations. Unfortunately since it appears that Microsoft has removed the API that the software designer used for this program – this may be a dead program. But, if you read the author’s blog he may actually get around to releasing a new version – just in time for Windows 7 (http://foldersize.blogspot.com).
