question about Windows 7 SP1 and disabling defender/firewall/update

[DavidH30]

Ok I saw another thread that you shouldn't do this but I wanted to ask the question again since I believe they still used Explorer and Google inside Windows 7. I only use my windows VM to access one application and don't use Explorer8 inside of Windows 7 I also Have it disabled in features along with everything else, except Microsoft .net framework 4.5.2(needed to run RQ4) and I don't install anything on the Windows 7 VM but RQ4 application installed at startup.

What I use Iqmetrix/RQ4 is to view Sales, Inventory, and who's logged into each store daily. I do not take payments or have any type of payment system hooked up to my Mac or VM. The system updates I believe are direct from iqmetrix as I never have to access explorer, google, or anything to preform updates to RQ4. Now the reason I'm asking this is because I'm starting out fresh with 13.12gb used with Parallels and Windows 7 after doing a fresh install. Previously after a year of doing updates my VM was taking up almost 90gb of space on my Mac and I don't want this to happen again.

 

[alexg]

DavidH30, there is no reason the disk to be increased with no reason There is the list of some reasons why the VM disk would be increased:

1. Using SmartGuear feature for VM. It can increase size of the VM in times.
2. Using Snapshots. The same as SmartGuard but it happens manually.
3. Installing new Windows versions with saving Windows.old
4. Using outdated Acronis True Image software to backup Mac. (due to the error it can do wrong snapshots and never delete them)

I doubt Windows updates takes space. It is not a reason of increasing space. So, please check if you have SmartGuard and Snapshots. If so, disable /delete them. Use Window Disk Cleanup utility to free up the space and delete Windows.old directory. Use Reclaim Disk space after using Windows Disk Cleanup utility.