Windows folder may containt 500'000 files or more

This week, I found that C:\Windows contains ~500'000 files and ~200'000 folders. I'm running Win10 for ~1.5 years and this is a little too many of files created IMHO. So I decided to have a glimpse on what is typical for the freshly installed OS.

For my experiments, I was installing several OSes in VirtualBox. Immediately after the end of the installation process, I was checking how many files and folders were created in total.

 OSes:

• 3.11: Windows 3.11
• 98: Windows 98 SE
• XP: Windows XP SP3 32x
• 7: Windows 7 Max 32x
• 10: Windows 10 Enterprise 64x
• Linux: Kubuntu 22.04 LTS 64x

I measured Files (total number of files), Folders (total number of folders created), Space (size for folders and files), Memory (RAM memory footprint), Files/Folder and Space/File values.

Conclusions

• To my surprise, Linux has many files and folders. While occupied space and memory consumption are not the highest ones.
• Files/Folder and Space/File values are lower than I was expecting.

Moreover, I measured the Installation time and Launch time upon restart. The timer was stopped when the interface was becoming responsive. E.g., it was possible to press the Start button and to see the menu unfolding. Just of note, my laptop is rather old one (Lenovo T420, 2520M/6 Gb/320 Gb, 2244 points at CPUmark).

* Installation time for Windows 3.11 and Windows 98 excludes time needed to prepare the formatted disk partition. As soon as installer is not capable of doing it, I did it with 3rd parties tools.

Conclusions

• Windows XP is really fast in the VirtualBox environment.
• It takes longer to install Windows 7, but then it runs faster than Windows 10.

Software is full of errors and glitches as of 2022

In the last week or two, I observed a plethora of error messages. While it is 2022 and programmers are not self-educated people anymore, errors are often looking stupid and non-informative.

1. Server side error at Wrike. "Something went wrong." Luckily, it was self-resolved in 15 minutes.

2. Server-side error at Upwork. Luckily, self-resolved in 10 minutes.

3. MS Teams was not able to connect me to the meeting created by me (!) for the organization where I have limited access. Error message is absolutely non-informative.

4. MS Outlook is not giving me access to email attachments. Sender was creating a link for the file shared via MS Sharepoint, but I wasn't added to the list of recipients having permission to get the file. I see three different error messages on my screenshot, but none of them is clear enough.

5. MS Sharepoint can not give me access to MS Office files, because I was logged with other credentials.

6. Website has issues with voting system. Error message stating that "something horrible happened" is stupid.

7. I registered with Airbnb, and they provided me in the middle of the night with the link that "expires soon". Nice!

8. Mobile application from the GSM operator (Life.com.by) had no access to the Internet. Error messages are more or less fine. The last message shows blocked websites.

9. Error message for ZOOM. I don't know what happened.

In short, it seems like error messages are not for answering the question of what happened.