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This is the first software product review from The Empire and we’re starting off with one of the smallest tools in my arsenal. It’s also one of the most useful. WinDirStat scans your hard drives and displays an explorer style listing of the contents with sizes denoted for each folder and file on the drive AND a visual map of those files. One of the best things about the tool is that it weighs in at a miniscule 632kb for the installer so it can be used on systems where you are rapidly running out of space.
The visuals are very helpful, while the program is running a pacman style progress bar shows you which directories are still being scanned.

Once WinDirStat has completed the scan it shows you the exact information for your drive as well as the aforementioned visual map.While at first glance the visual portion may be just a confusing array of colors it is this visual display which makes WinDirStat such a powerful tool. If you click on any colored block in the visual map WinDirStat takes you to the location of that file. By clicking on the large purple box in the upper left hand of the map I learned that I have an 8gb screen capture from 2007. I can now delete that file directly from WinDirStat by right clicking and choosing to delete.
Another extremely useful aspect of the map is the list of file types on the right hand side. If you select one of those file types every file which corresponds to that type becomes highlighted on the visual map. That lets you instantly see how much of your drive is taken up by movies, or mp3s, or anything else and can help you locate those files.
Additionally you can right click on the folder list and open a Command prompt at that location, or an Explorer Window. WinDirStat is a must have tool for anyone that deals with PCs on a regular basis whether in a professional or personal capacity. It’s the best tool I’ve ever seen for managing your drive space and avoiding the tragedy of a crashed PC due to no space left on your C: drive.

Remember, if this helped you

Also please donate to the WinDirStat project if you used their project and like it.