Windows 7 log file compression problems can fill up your hard drive

Microsoft has known almost this issues in the Trusted Installer log for years, but done nil about it

Windows 7 log file compression bug can fill up your hard drive
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Having a hard time with Windows gobbling upward your hard drive? Yous'll be interested to learn Microsoft has known almost the problem for more than than two years and washed nix virtually it. There's a manual fix, which I will talk over, just it isn't clear if this solution works in all cases.

This is a known problem with Windows 7, eight, and 2008 R2 (and perhaps other versions) where accumulated log files abound to an enormous size -- 237GB co-ordinate to one report. If you delete the files, Windows kicks in every twenty minutes or so and starts generating 100MB files, continuously, until yous run out of hard drive space -- again. The overflow files get into your Windows Temp folder, typically C:\Windows\Temp.

Poster jwalker107 on the Microsoft Answers forum describes the symptoms:

I've had repeated instances where a Windows 7 x64 client runs out of difficult bulldoze infinite, and found that C:\Windows\TEMP is existence consumed with hundreds of files with names following the pattern "cab_XXXX_X", generally 100 MB each, and these files are constantly generated until the system runs out of space.  Upon removing the files & rebooting, the files kickoff being generated again.

I've found that this is caused by large Component-Based Servicing logs.  These are stored at C:\Windows\Logs\CBS.  The current log file is named "cbs.log".  When "cbs.log" reaches a certain size, a cleanup process renames the log to "CbsPersist_YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.log" and and then attempts to compress it into a .cab file.

However, when the cbs.log reaches a size of 2 GB before that cleanup procedure compresses information technology, the file is too large to be handled by the makecab.exe utility.  The log file is renamed to CbsPersist_date_time.log, but when the makecab process attempts to compress it the procedure fails (but only after consuming some 100 MB under \Windows\Temp).  Subsequently this, the cleanup process runs repeatedly (approx every 20 minutes in my feel).  The process fails every time, and also consumes a new ~ 100 MB in \Windows\Temp before dying.  This is repeated until the system runs out of drive space.

The basic thought is that one time the Trusted Installer CBS log in C:\Windows\Logs\CBS grows to more than 2GB, the CAB compression utility (which Microsoft prefers to the far more common Zip) tin't handle it. Microsoft's makecab.exe chokes on files bigger than 2GB.

The effect is a deadly embrace between TrustedInstaller (the Windows Modules Installer Service) and the CAB compressor (makecab.exe), which throws off enormous volumes of useless Temp files and sucks upward cycles like nobody's business.

There are incorrect solutions to the problem all over the web, but one approach seems to end the madness. If your Windows 7 or 2008 R2 difficult bulldoze is overwhelmed by log files, hither'southward what to do:

Footstep 1. Stop the Windows Modules Installer service. Click Start and in the Search box type

services.msc

Press Enter and yous see the Local Services list.

Pace two. Scroll down to the Windows Modules Installer service and double-click on it.

Step 3. Under Service status, click Stop. Click OK.

Pace 4. Apply File Explorer to go to C:\Windows\Logs\CBS. (If Windows is installed on a different hard drive, you take to go to that drive.)

Step 5. Move or rename all of the files in that binder.

Step half-dozen. For skillful measure, delete all the "cab*" files in your Windows Temp binder, typically C:\Windows\Temp. Makecab won't ever delete them, so yous go to.

Step seven. Reboot.

When Windows comes back, the Windows Module Installer service will exist running once more, and makecab should terminate choking on the oversized log file.

If you need the large CBS.log file -- unlikely but possible -- just apply a text reader like Notepad to go into the renamed or moved file. If y'all aren't terribly interested in the log files, you can delete them.

Thanks to AskWoody.com poster ch100 for the tip.

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