[jRyan]

I took a screen-shot before the install: Free space was 54.1 GB.
Installed SP2, and immediately took a screenshot again: free space jumped to 74.0 GB.

As far as System Restore and Shadow Copy, take a look at Steve Bass's TechBite Newsletter #28 for an alternative (www.techbite.com/newsletter/28/save-your-pcs-bacon-back-up-the-registry)

[Richcat1]

Running a Studio 1535 and installed SP2 last night, cleaned my HD temps, restore points beforehand and my free disk space almost identical before and after.

[don7395]

I think the reason for gaining disk space after installing SP2 may be that the system restore points are being reset. When I did a clean install of windows vista with service pack 2 I noticed that when I would install a program the computer would make another system resttore point and my available harddrive space would drop.I turned off system protection for drive c and my drive space on c and my available drive space went from 391 gigs to 440 gigs. Most likely when someone installs sp2 on an older vista installation the service pack most likely will delete older system restore points.

[SpockHere]

After downloading and installing SP2 for Vista I found an increase of 40 - 50 Gb. Nothing has seemed to be out of the ordinary yet, so I would have to say the SP2 installation has been a success, I hope.

[oboedude]

I recently installed Service Pack 2 and I regained 10 GB of storage. Considering I'm only using a 100 GB hard drive with Vista Ultimate, 10 GB is a big deal.

[TooCrooked]

I didn't see the disk space jump, but it appears that the "calculating time remaning" issue may have been resolved. granted, the SECOND i started drafting this post, i got an issue where the crap froze up trying to move a folder with 65 files and 6 folders (of less than 1 meg total) from one partition to another, but in general, the problem seems less rampant. at this point, im mildly hopeful.
edit: after more tinkering, it appears there's still some serious flaw in file copying (over the network, at least). files are getting moved, but the copy dialog is failing to show meaningful/accurate information. i have a gig lan, and was moving SP2 across the web to an XP pro computer. this shouldnt take long on a gig network, but when i start moving it, im only seeing 80KB speeds. vista is telling me it's going to take 3 hours to move the 300something megabyte file. its ridiculous.

also, in an attempt to reverse my fortune, i connected to vista from XP, rather than the other way around, and while i can navigate folders and stuff all day without problems, the SECOND i attempt to select the 300mb file and copy it, my XP machine becomes a brick. the share locks up and nothing can be done. i can still ping my vista box and do stuff with it (i even tried to turn off the firewall and antivirus), but the xp box remains locked up.

ill never again buy windows.

[Josh000]

i use to have 120GB space free when i installed SP@ i noticed to have 165GB free a amazing 45GB of extra space

[slikrick]

I installed SP2 on a dell 530,vista home premium 64 bit on tues. afternoon,5,26/09.No problems what so ever.Came in update.Can't say that I have noticed much of an increase in disc space.

[duke523]

Went from 437 gb free to 566. 129 gb additional hdd space is kinda nice...I would like to know what all that 129 gb was.

[VHMP01]

In a HP dv5 with 500 Gb, I got 60 Gb extra and a bit of a speedup.
In a HP dv2000 with 120 Gb, I got 15 Gb extra and a bit of a speedup too.

I ran SP2 in a couple PCs at work to see how things went, it took from 30 to 45 minutes, it was smooth, and took a couple of restarts in which signs said ‘Installing 1 of 3, 2 of 3 and 3 of 3 and respective percentages appeared, screen blinked and turned off for 2 or 3 minutes (If you’re not patient and turn off here you mess thing up, I held myself from it).

Now both laptops at home boot a bit faster, they got almost 15% more free hard drive space!

[drmsucks]

My guess is that SP2 deletes all restore points prior to the installation of SP2 so that "improper" files do not get "restored." If this is the case, the disk usage will increase (free space will decrease) as new restore points build up.
I'm still a 90% XP user but installed SP2 uneventfully on two dual boot machines; but, cannot see any difference yet.

[jacko15]

Downloaded and installed SP2 about a week ago and didn't really notice much change, but after reading this story I checked my free disk space and was astounded to see about 48 gigs more! Also, no problem with install. I bought my present Dell about 2 years ago with Vista factory installed. I keep reading about people having problems and being unhappy with Vista. I don't get it. I haven't had a problem and love the interface and function of this OS.

[levubinh]

I gained about 15 gig. Pretty good!

[ernestohenriquez]

my computer started downloading winvista sp2 through my regular updates. all i did was click ok, and it was done w/in 45 min. everything seems to work good since then and i just checked my disk space and i seem to have an xtra 35g of space. i have no complaints, but then again my laptop is only 1 month old which makes me even happier w/this purchase.

[aweysham]

Successful SP2 installation and gained 39 gig drive space. Super!!

[mansai]

The Release notes from Microsoft indicates the following:

SP2 also includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which helps recover the hard disk space by permanently deleting previous versions of files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2.

[DTNick]

Yep, and I note this in the story. What was unclear, however, was whether or not this was running automatically while installation or whether it had to be run separately. But from what Microsoft tells me, it seems that the cleanup is happening during installation.

[anandspeak]

I dont know what to make of it. Perhaps compcln.exe would have been run already on my system, when I installed sp2.
Yesterday, I tried again and gained only about 2.5 gig freespace.

[atsiv]

Microsoft has probably removed many redundant stuff in Vista SP2 update. To my surprise, after installing SP2 update, there is some 62+GB HD space recovered from my PC. The PC then runs slightly faster and smoother. I was so worry that this SP2 update has removed my users files.

The problem is there are errors when installing SP2 using the usual MS AutoUpdate. I have attempted 3 times and all failed. You may not get the SP2 update through the normal MS AutoUpdate. You need to go to MS website to download the SP2 update file and install manually. The funny thing is that Microsoft gives the file name as Windows6 instead of the usual Vista SP2 . This shows Microsoft is desperate to get rid of Vista. I suspect the Vista SP2 is actually the Windows7 'trial' version and the next Windows7 release could be just a cosmetic version of this Vista SP2.

This sounds too good to be true and compares to what Apple claimed that the Snow Leopard will recover only 6GB HD space. Maybe, Microsoft should claim that Windows7 will recover 62+GB (in my case) HD space from Vista in order to justify for the usual high price. This also confirm that Vista is a total failure of Microsoft.

[atsiv]

I do not think the SP1 is any good. I do not see any improvement on performance and gain in HD space. Only the SP2 gives gain in HD space as much as 62+GB and also my PC seems running better though is not significant.