Every day we offer FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise.

DiskAnalyzer Pro 3.4 Giveaway
$39.00
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — DiskAnalyzer Pro 3.4

Manage and Control Hard Disk Space Usage using DiskAnalyzer Pro!
$39.00 EXPIRED
User rating: 321 65 comments

DiskAnalyzer Pro 3.4 was available as a giveaway on June 27, 2011!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$36.00
free today
Download music from 1000+ sites anytime and anywhere!

DiskAnalyzer Pro helps you to locate and remove space wasting files on your hard disk drive. You can see exact disk space utilization with detailed disk space reports. You can see reports grouped by file types, attributes, file size, ownership, date and time.

The program enables to search and filter for all types of files, move or delete unwanted files, copy files to another path, compress files and create a single ZIP file. All disk space reports can be saved to external files such as HTML, CSV and XML. This is useful if you want to keep disk space reports history or import data into any other program. You can find duplicate files, junk files, temporary and internet files, images, videos, audio files, zip files using DiskAnalyzer Pro.

System Requirements:

Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003 or 2008; 7 MB Disk Space; 256 MB RAM (1 GB Recommended)

Publisher:

Reflection Software Solutions

Homepage:

http://www.diskanalyzerpro.com/index.html

File Size:

3.67 MB

Price:

$39.00

GIVEAWAY download basket

Developed by Informer Technologies, Inc.
Developed by IObit
Developed by Garmin Ltd or its subsidiaries
Developed by Disc Soft Ltd.

Comments on DiskAnalyzer Pro 3.4

Thank you for voting!
Please add a comment explaining the reason behind your vote.
#65

Great program! it found alot of stuff that was hogging the space on my computer and i was able to remove those files and folder's with ease! :D

Reply   |   Comment by Shawn Duffy  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#64

#25 (ron)
hi ron just wanted to say I have WinDirStat and it works really well.
I tried downloading it using #3's (r0lZ) link and it worked fine.
The site has a direct link or another mirror if you have problems.
Just thought I'd reassure you that it's not 'sus :-)

Reply   |   Comment by imontheinternet  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#63

Awesome!! Thanks GOTD

Reply   |   Comment by Mike Taylor  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#62

@Jack (#35): for the missing pure text export format there is a simple workaround. Just save any report as html, open it in any internet explorer and mark therein all of it, and copy that and paste it into an editor, where you can make further design of your report. Notepad could be sufficient for such work.

@Mike (#40): please do not suggest to delete or uninstall paint or wordpad, because in case you have to edit picture or text quick and simple (but neat) they are great utilities and as such minimal(istic) tools of the operating system, also in respect of file size. Especially the xp version of paint has many handy shortcuts to fasten every simple cutting and resizing work.

Reply   |   Comment by loqman  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#61

EricT #34--

I'm no computer expert (any more) and so will wait for newer generation techies to tear apart my answer. But to provide the public service of giving them something to tear apart (instead of their typical 8-word, code-filled, jargon-laden completely un-understandable "answer") here is a plain English attempt.

There are several good reasons to keep your disk cleaned up. Here are a few to start:

(1) Backups--in various forms--take lots of space. Whether it is a regular system restore point, an automated regular back-up, or just the previous versions of edited files, today's huge video files eat up a lot of space. So even though you might only start with one copy of a particular 200 megabyte file, with a couple of edits, maybe a cropped version, a couple of system point updates and a daily and weekly backup* and that single file can become many 200 megabyte files--most of which are "hidden" in some other version in some other directory on your hard drive.

So if you do any sort of editing of big files on your system, and if you are the least bit neurotic about being sure you don't lose your hard work half-way done, disk space will disappear quickly.

*flamers, calm down. I fully realize that the best backups are stored not only on different drives, but in different machines at different physical street addresses. There is room, however, for more mundane backups of working files just in case one version gets corrupted or for when you make that "oh no" irreversible sweeping edit that makes your current working file pretty much useless. It is much easier to retrieve a backup copy from yesterday's version from another directory on your hard disk than to get that file locked up in the fire-safe vault 300 miles away. . . you get my point, I hope. . .

(2) The size and capacity of a "normal" computer keeps changing. What was a huge hard drive even a year or two ago may even be considered too small for an entry-level machine this year. Much of this is bloat, but much of this space will get eaten up by an ever-increasing operating system and ever-increasingly large programs and updates.

So unless you are one of the lucky ones who can replace your computer every two- or three-years, you will run the risk of running out of space in a couple of years, unless. . .

(3) Some folks don't like to mess around with adding hard drives to their computers, either because they have other ways they would rather spend their precious non-work time, or because they have had bad experiences with what seemed to be a routine upgrade that turned into a massive (and perhaps expensive) headache.

While it used to be that most people who owned personal computers *had* to know how to install specialized drivers for each piece of hardware, for each piece of software (pre-windows), now most computer users see their computers as a necessary piece of communication equipment. Some would no more think of cracking open their case to add a next-generation SATA card-n-drive than to reprogram their cell phones, figure out how to find and replace a blown capacitor on their "computerized" sewing machine or to hack into their automobile internal error code diagnostic system. Some people like to do each of these--few like to do, or have the time to do, all of them.

(4) My favorite: Some folks are just collectors. . .

If you have installed on your computer just one video editing program, one program to rip and burn DVDs and another to do CDs, a single program to handle all your text/document needs, one for photo editing, another for keeping track of your various libraries of music, video, photos, digital art, etc.--even if you do all of these things, only one program each will keep your disk needs small.

But many folks here talk about having two, or three, or even a half-dozen programs that do the same thing in different ways. How else could someone give a head-to-head comparison of different programs? I know people who have, and who use, three different font-editing packages, with different font formats for each! Others have three different "office productivity suites" to handle specific formats of documents sent to them by regular collaborators.

So if you have multiple programs for each task on your computer (and especially if these different programs create their own special format for storing the data) you can see those gigabytes of disk space disappear quite quickly.

(4b) And some people collect things because they never really can bring themselves to throw anything out. Again I know perfectly reasonable people who keep 6-year-old 3rd-party instructional videos for software they no longer have installed "because if I should ever install it again I could never find this awesome series of tutorials!"

(5) Some people believe in keeping their "old" computers up and running as long as is possible. For some it is a matter of pride, for others, a hobby, for still others, a technical challenge (because it's there!). Yet if you have, for example, even a Pentium-3 processor and motherboard, chances are your hard disc storage space is limited, just because people generally didn't even *know* what came after "megabyte" way back then. . .

And you can do most of anything you might need to do on computers today on even a Pentium 2 machine (or earlier if you are really into it) if you do things like manage your disk space carefully.

I hope this has been helpful. There clearly are reasonable reasons that reasonable people need to manage their disk space carefully. And if the past is any guide, we will be seeing 100 gig hard drives featured in new computers any time now!

And if that space is available, someone will find a reasonable way to fill it up.

Reply   |   Comment by Roy Gathercoal  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#60

Hi Folks,

I think this used to be Crave Worldwide, and a good product. You will always find that file reports vary on utility, one is better on extensions, or file size, or folder breakout or this or that. At times you want to have more than one.

A nice GAOTD.

Thanks.

Steven Avery

Reply   |   Comment by Steven Avery  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#59

After a bit of playing around with it I found it to be fairly intuitive without the tutorials. Not a bad little program. Seems to have a great number of potential features and I actually find it to be very quick in sorting out files and file types. I was pleasantly surprised at its possibilities and ease of use. Remember to switch drives to examine one must initiate a file search in the File menu. I'd recommend it.

Reply   |   Comment by Paul  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#58

I'm glad I decided to check this program out. It's a keeper, most times I give consideration to the votes, but lately its just been skewed by sheisters, and lowlifes trying to prop up their programs at the expense of others. This program works fine, clean interface, decent features, and stable coding. the only thumbs down goes to the whining hangabouts.

Reply   |   Comment by Alex Neave  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#57

I was able to find and delete lots of backup and log files and more that disc cleaners never seem to find. And I was able to see many files and folders I didn't know were there before. I think this will remain a useful software choice for me. There are lots of options and various views that make it more interesting and helpful. There may be other programs that are better or free or whatever but this one is nice and I will keep it with my thanks. I don't find it too slow, especially considering the job it is doing. (Under two minutes for a full scan). Why is everyone in such a hurry anyway?
One of the really good things about this analyzer is the amount of help available that is so often missing with software now. Not only are there online FAQ, demo videos and tutorials, there is also a user manual built into the program. Those of us who weren't born knowing everything really appreciate that!

Reply   |   Comment by J Rose  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#56

This is my first comment even though I've been a fan of Giveaway for three years. I'm doing so because I read so many negative comments about this software and I personally think it's fantastic. I'm not a casual user either because I have my own IT support company for SOHO and small businesses and this will be very helpfull to me regardless of whether my clients use it on their own. I know there are other applications out there but so far this has the features to do everything I need to do from a monitoring and cleanup standpoint.
Thanks Giveaway

Reply   |   Comment by Marvin  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#55

Win7,
1 TB drive, 143 GB used, just over 1 minute.
1.5 TB drive, 611 GB used (Large Backup/image files), literally a few seconds

Reply   |   Comment by RichU  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#54

I use TreeSize on my Dual Monitor Win7/64 system. Seems to take a while to generate the initial files but ok after that. Seems to me a few years back there was a program we could install that would actually show the size of the folders whenever they were present in the details/list view of our harddrives. Thats what I would like rather than having to make a special effort.

Why is that so hard to do?

I use TreeSize whenever I need to free up space on my C drive so that certain programs will even run--too many won't allow you to set their temp folders other than C Drive. My current file splitter does that when trying to recover a .ts recording with a bad header. That requires "an extra" 7-8-9 Gigs of free space to produce the split files. Its never available right now.

Often what fills it up is some video transcoding program that will dump a few gigs onto the C Drive and I don't notice it. Currently my C Drive is 29 Gigs and I will go up to 40 GB on my next hard drive installation.

As I have dual monitors (triple actually), I won't be able to try this giveaway, but keep the good stuff: programs and comments, coming.

Reply   |   Comment by bobbo  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#53

Very nice program. It installed flawlessly in Vista Home Premium, on a Dell 530 (dual-core 2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM) and indexed my C drive which had about 250 GB of files on it in under 3 minutes. Note also that it works fine on mapped drives, even has a handy button for creating or disconnecting mapped drives in the toolbar.

I've been using PC's since MS-DOS 1.1, and have tried a *lot* of programs of this type. This program is nicely assembled, has a simple but effective interface, and works well - three good attributes to have. Would I paid $39 for it? No, probably not. There are as mentioned free equivalents. But getting it for free here today, I will -definitely- keep and use it frequently, as it is nicer than the free ones I've seen.

Reply   |   Comment by Mark Magill  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#52

Shipdog7,

Open dialog regarding other producs is something that benefits everyone on this forum. You are always free to just download the OTD or comment on it. Many users share experiences with other applications and I for one appreciate it. The internet works best when we all share and help each other.

Rick

Reply   |   Comment by Rick Sumrall  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#51

I don't think it is slow @ all. There must be something wrong with a computer that seems 2 take 2 long.
I just did a scan on a 900GB partition that is severely fragmented and it only took 29.34 seconds.
As to the recs and links to similar progs, I use these to earnestly evaluate the GOAD as compared 2 it's competitors. I find this process 2 be the best way 2 find what works best 4 me.
I have no qualms about buying the commercial software if the bought version has added functions that I need or want. I also use these posts 2 find out if there is a problem with the program b 4 I install. That's something I learned the hard way with Ocster, which caused problems long enough that it prevented me from installing Paragon on it's GOAD licencing day.
Personally I like they way things work with GOAD, their customers and the posters. The only thing I would change is the poor response by GOAD about licencing problems before the 1 day licence expires.

Reply   |   Comment by Pic-Z  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#50

@mike. thanks a lot for the portable app alternatives. They're working great.

Reply   |   Comment by Ozawa  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#49

excellent installed brilliant not sure how to use it yet but it does everything it said on screenshots

Reply   |   Comment by biggus dickus  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-4)
#48

Unless I'm missing something, it appears that Internet Explorer is required? It told me I need to install Flash in Internet Explorer to see the charts.
I'm a Firefox user.

Reply   |   Comment by Keith  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#47

Re. comment 24, I also had the same dual monitor problem. Spanned both screens and couldn't be moved by dragging. What's more, I couldn't close the program. Had to resort to task manager. For that reason alone, it won't be a keeper.

Reply   |   Comment by Dave  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#46

Looks like the program cannot be installed via WLAN.

Installation via cable worked fine, while installatinn via WLAN does not work.

Reply   |   Comment by Brian  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#45

Dinasis,

Nothing wrong with my computer, nor the computers of *many* of the people here, who are asking for this software to be a lot faster. It's the top idea for improvement, even.

TreeSize does the job in a few minutes. This one doesn't. That's what I was saying.

I thank the devs for giving us this chance to have a look at it, of course.

Reply   |   Comment by KTUK  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#44

I found that this program locks up on Cooliris files, even if they are in the Recycle Bin. Cooliris was installed on Chrome. In uninstalled program, deleted appdata\cooliris, emptied Recycle Bin (130,000 Items), and the scan worked. I will not miss Cooliris.

Reply   |   Comment by George  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#43

#34: "... I would though appreciate it if someone could enlighten me as to why I need to be concerned with wasted disk space. "

If you have a big junk drawer, & there's fairly little in it, finding what you want is always quick & easy. If you have a small drawer OTOH filled to overflowing, it's much more hassle.

Hard drive storage is I think a lot like that... *you* may not ever go looking for something, or rely on search when you do, but Windows or whatever software does have to look through it all. Add that backups are smaller & take less time to create, defragging is quicker, A/V scans are faster & so on the fewer the files & the less disk space used.

That said, while it may drive many tech people nuts, I don't think most people bother. Many techs might say that having all these old, accumulated files causes problems, but please bear in mind that few if any ask them to look at their PC/laptop if they're not having problems -- there may be millions of people happily filling their hard drives without a care, NOT having any problems, & those same techs would never know. I'd think if it were that big a problem there'd have to be more techs than there are today, but that's just my guess.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#42

Interesting program...
Scanned my C drive in 2 minutes, but what i find most interesting is that you can see whats in your pagefile if you right click on pagefile.sys and choose "view all files in this folder".

Reply   |   Comment by Jeff  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+11)
#41

>33. though DiskAnalyzer Pro does use TurboActivate

I'm thinking (did not verify) that this is actually just a holdover from a "regular" retail version of the program, where this is pre-registered to GAOTD?

Reply   |   Comment by therube  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#40

#28: "Anyway, if your main goal in using such tools is to free up HD space, another clever way to do this, many people out there are not aware of, is to remove useless old back up RESTORE POINTS as well as old WINDOWS UPDATE BACKUP FILES from your system."

Be Careful... There's no harm of course in removing old Restore Points -- you can either use Windows Disk Cleanup [Start Menu -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup] or turn System Restore off & then back on. It's handy BTW to turn it off before performing a disk image backup -- you might be surprised at how big a difference it can make. But Always Back Up before deleting anything but Temp folder contents in the Windows folder. Depending on Windows version, Disc Cleanup may offer an option for some update uninstall files, there are some tools you'll find searching microsoft.com, most folders starting $NtUninstall... can be deleted [don't get rid of $hf_mig$], many of the *.msi* files can be deleted in Windows\ Installer, you can delete quite a few files from the dllcache folder [lets you empty things like the Netmeeting folder], & depending on your setup you might find a lot of less needed files in folders like SoftwareDistribution. You can also try tools like nlite to remove things like Windows Paint, Wordpad etc. BUT, you can also mess things up -- I've had .NET updates refuse to install because they couldn't verify what was already installed, which was a PITA to fix. And of course deleting uninstall folders or files means you can't remove those apps/updates as you normally could.

* * *

#29: "... too technical for me to understand completely, but was enough a deterrent nevertheless..."

Purely FWIW, if/when anyone's curious, concerned, or confused by the UAC stuff & limited privileges in Vista/7, Google/Bing on SysInternals or click here for their msdn site [ http://goo.gl/kGcrz ] & check out some of Mark Russinovich's blogs, articles, &/or videos -- one suggestion would be to search msdn for "Mark Russinovich uac". IMHO the videos can be a bit dry, but most anything he's written isn't bad, is understandable, & is well enough organized that you can usually skim to the parts/info you're after.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+21)
#39

>4. the search and indexing functions are impressively fast on my four-year-old Dell

I have found that to generally be true too.

>11. attractive and useful interface. It is very easy to see where the disc space is used, and the drill down on individual items can offer some real surprises

Agreed.

>12. I’m sorry but I don’t consider it informing when someone comes on here to promote other software.

Disagree. I find the alternatives mentioned one of the main benefits of these comments.

>16. DiskAnalyzer Pro seems to act like an anti-virus or malware scanner when compiling the data. It takes a very very long time – 45 minutes to scan a 250GB HDD.

Seems excessively long to me? Can't say that I've seen that. /Most/ directory structures that I've looked at scan impressively quickly. My MP3 drive was slower, but no more then a few minutes at most.

>22. Portable applications are a bad idea on Vista+.

I wish to explore that elsewhere.

---

This may not a program you use all the time, but it is useful in pointing out "stats" of interest. The program works quickly for me.

The main impetus in looking at this program for me was the duplicate file finder. Now the DFF is not an end-all, but it is quick & I do use it as one of many duplicate file finding types of programs that I use. It can quickly point out areas (directories) that I may have overlooked, that I may then load into some other DFF program.

Reply   |   Comment by therube  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#38

@shipdog7
This is a forum, "a place for open discussion". To place limitations on this forum denies that "open" concept and impairs the daily, focused, learning opportunities many of us relish from GAOTD's website.

Part of that openness includes various knowledgeable members comparing the GAOTD offering to known competitors products (free and otherwise). If they decide to share their research and provide a direct link to the product(s), we warmly welcome such a gesture because, as we have all discovered, if there is no link, you have to: (1) cut and paste (or, dread, re-type) the product name; (2) enter it into a search engine; (3) weed your way through the various hits to find the hopefully-correct website; (4) weed your way through that website to find the "free version" of the software; (5) realize it's the wrong website and back out to the search engine to look for the next hopefully-correct website, and repeat steps 3 and 4 (and hopefully not step 5).
I am not an expert in all-things-computer so I do greatly appreciate the introductory schooling I receive from this website (disk analysis today, perhaps video conversion or file encryption tomorrow).

And sometimes I weigh the information provided in this forum and ultimately decide to download the offering of the day and check it out (and/or a stated alternative).
Cheers

Reply   |   Comment by Johnnie Walker  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+26)
#37

I disagree with the comments above that we should not post info on freeware that does similar functions to the GAOTD software. The first advantage of the freeware is that it is always free so if one should acquire a new computer they can always load the freeware, whereas the GAOTD software can be loaded only on one day. And the freeware often offers different functions not offered by the GAOTD software, as can be seen by the alternatives today. Plus the freeware is often well tested over a period of time whereas the GAOTD is often new software that has problems.

I appreciate those who offer alternatives and hope they will continue to do so.

Reply   |   Comment by Dave H.  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+10)
#36

This was offered before (February 2010, perhaps).
Anyone know if there are actual changes?
Both are version 3.4.
The name has changed from "Crave Worldwide, India" to "Reflection Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.".

Reply   |   Comment by therube  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#35

After a brief look and a bit of exploring, this program certainly has its uses to better understand disk content. This is what Windows Explore should have been in the first place, but lost many of these features as it has been dumbed down over the years.

This being said, I have two comments.

1.) I normally use dual monitors, so Amy's comment (#24) is somewhat of a concern. I am back to a single monitor at the moment owing to the death of my second monitor and the arrival and installation of its replacement (32" LED LCD 1080P HDTV) which is on its way. If this program bombs out with the second monitor installed, I will have no choice but to uninstall it.

2.) It seems that the DiskAnalyzer developers have solely focused on identifying space utilization of a disk. There are other unmeet needs which are not addressed by the lame Windows Explore as well.

For example, Windows Explore has no ability to batch rename files or to manipulate file names except one at a time, and neither does DiskAnalyzer, AFAIK.

I have used ExplorerXP, a now unsupported and un-updated piece of freeware http://www.explorerxp.com/, to do this.

ExplorerXP works well in XP, but less so in Vista, where it works for what I want to do, which is mostly batch renaming of files and to prepare and/or print an occasional file list (as a *.txt file which is added to its relevant folder.) This batch rename feature is most useful when dealing with large collections of similar files such as audio files, particularly audio books, and with pictures as well.

Also, I did not see a feature to just give me a simple filelist.txt report of a folder's contents in DiskAnalyzer without a lot of fancy and unwanted data detail (e.g. there is no way AFAIK to suppress unwanted columns like "Size on Disk" and Attributes, and to keep filenames text boxes from folding, which makes for a longer printout, etc.)

While one has a lot of options of what to include in a filelist, for some reason one is limited to .html, .csv, and .xml outputs. You forgot good old-fashioned .txt! *.txt is much easier to print without having to import a .csv file into a spreadsheet to clean it up by getting rid of unwanted columns etc.

Also would it not make more sense to have the default filelist be saved to the same (and more relevant) folder for which one is preparing the filelist?

As it is now, it is the last folder to which a list was saved, which causes one have to navigate to the a new folder location (but only once) for the next saved filelist.

I would urge the developers to have a good look at ExploreXP and study the features of the rename process and filelist process as they are implemented there. That developer, Nikolay Avrionvov, got it right.

This would make the software more generally appealing by adding file management features in addition to just file size and type analysis.

Reply   |   Comment by Jack  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#34

I am your "Average Joe" user and simply trying to understand why I need to clear up "wasted" disk space. I use 1/3 of my hardrive including 135 days worth of music and 20,000 photographs. Whenever I use any of the utilities it seems I need to spend a couple of hours messing around with things that I am not certain about. At the end of it all my computer still grinds along with the spinning thingy going and the "not responding" tag on the address bar.
I like this forum because there are a lot of individuals who review software with insight and I like the addition of the freeware suggestions.
I also appreciate many of the giveaways.
I would though appreciate it if someone could enlighten me as to why I need to be concerned with wasted disk space. If there is a good reason to I will try todays GOTH

Reply   |   Comment by EricT  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#33

DiskAnalyzer Pro is a nice app, though not what I expected... You search a drive/partition not for a particular file or files, but to build a list of every file & folder & their attributes -- this report or list can be saved/opened, & is the basis for all the file/folder info in all the different views. IMHO the downside is that that search has to be performed every time you want current info, & depending on the number of files/folders & your drive access speed, that can take a while. On the upside, once DiskAnalyzer Pro makes up one of those lists, changing views to for example, show largest files 1st is very fast. *To me* it's not something I'd use every day, or even every week, but would be more useful building lists I'd save for other systems, &/or doing the same thing with external drives/devices I don't use or access constantly, e.g. it will be handy to quickly analyze what backups for what machines are on the external drive I use for that. I think I'll also try saving reports/lists for the archive DVDs I burn every month -- that's where I off-load whatever downloads I keep for that month, including things likes apps, updates, & drivers... I rarely look at or use them, plus I'm not that organized, so full fledged cataloging systems just haven't proven worth the bother -- it'd be much faster to load a list than load a DVD or pull an external drive out of it's case & hook it up.

Installation isn't bad, though for listing drive contents on other systems portability would *really* be handy. The DiskAnPro program folder holds ~8 GB with 15 files, 1 folder, while installation adds a recorded 132 new registry entries -- besides a key for the shell/context menu, you get 1 key for uninstall, & 2 keys named DiskAnalyzer30. I didn't see anything unusual with Process Explorer, though DiskAnalyzer Pro does use TurboActivate [ http://goo.gl/4LB1X ], which isn't a problem itself IMHO, but just something else to potentially go wrong -- sorry, I like simple. :-)

For going beyond Windows Explorer I like Disk Space Fan Pro [I think a previous GOTD] for a quick, pie chart breakdown, & while Windows search is very cool in win7, I still often use the same File Finder I think I've used for over a decade now -- it was assimilated into / packaged with PowerDesk, itself a handy app that goes back years & years, & is distributed now through Advanquest -- Google/Bing for free versions if interested [though there's certainly nothing wrong with paying for it]. And a quick, painless way to check out a few similar apps is visit portableapps.com -- if you like one of their apps there's no reason you can't install the regular version if that's what you prefer. In the utilities section on their applications page you'll find CubicExplorer, Explorer++, FreeCommander, & WinDirStat -- all free, all can be installed/unpacked to any folder, all work with the portableapps.com menu/launcher, & other than the storage space used, they have zero permanent impact.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+25)
#32

Thanks, a very useful program. Immediately found a hidden 3.73GB Norton GoBack file (a program which I long ago deleted), more than doubling my available disc space! Found a couple more 2GB+ files which I can delete if need be.

Reply   |   Comment by Mark  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#31

I can not install this program.It continually states that I can not connect with GOTD.

Usually I can and only occasionally this issue comes up.

I have not changed my settings and other things I download and connect to have no issue.

Reply   |   Comment by Tim  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-10)
#30

To KTUK, I assure you your computer is more likely the reason DiskAnalyzer Pro took 45 minutes to scan a 250 GB hard drive. I've been using it for a while and would be getting today's GAotD if i didn't have version 3.4 already. I scanned my terabyte drive (57.3 GBs free, 931 GBs working space) in under three minutes.

I've given Sequoia View and WinDirStat a shot and will be trying a few of the suggestions here, but while I kept WinDirStat and love its presentation and options, there are a lot of sorting and comparison options that DiskAnalyzer Pro offers that it doesn't. WinDirStat is great for at a glance comparisons. My favored use for it is selecting a filetype and seeing exactly where each one is in the folder structure in the TreeMap. DiskAnalyzer Pro does the one thing that I most sorely wanted from WinDirStat, generating lists of the files by extension. Not just that, but they're editable, you can rename files or change their extensions without the extra step of a Windows confirmation at each changed extension.

On top of type, you can generate file lists by owner, size, date, a list of all folders and sub-folders, plus a few others. The owner listing was especially helpful after migrating to my current Windows 7 machine and all the old files that were still explicitly owned by the profile on my old computer. The only oddity is that in the Folder/Sub-Folder listing is you can't delete folders from it, which is disappointing because you can sort them by size and it would make it real easy to delete empty folders from it as well.

Reply   |   Comment by Dinasis  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+14)
#29

I was all ready to give this a try until I read Fubar's post which was too technical for me to understand completely, but was enough a deterrent nevertheless. I am currently using Treesize which is rather good for my needs.

Reply   |   Comment by kimotheraphy  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-12)
#28

Once again another useful GAOTD that does the same (or even less) things that other FREE programs do.... and once again I was wondering why one should pay 40 BUCKS for a program like this, if FREEWARE apps like WinDirStat and SPACE SNIFFER (my favourite ones) can do the same job without any hassle.

The only answer I have for this (silly) question is that many developers focus their attention on the "average Joe user", namely on people who are not aware of FREE alternatives to their programs.

But if this is their main target, why do they offer such apps here where every day dozen of clever geeks "screw" them mentioning FREE ALTERNATIVES that are most often even better than their pricily programs?

Anyway, if your main goal in using such tools is to free up HD space, another clever way to do this, many people out there are not aware of, is to remove useless old back up RESTORE POINTS as well as old WINDOWS UPDATE BACKUP FILES from your system.

In fact, as you should know, WINDOWS automatically creates several RESTORE POINTS at regular intervals (usually every day) or at the time of significant system events such as the installation of a new software or device driver.

At the same time WINDOWS makes a BACK UP of all the files that will be replaced by the new patches/hotfixes every time you install them through WINDOWS UPDATE, as precautionary measure to revert your PC into its prior state, should the UPDATES cause problems to your system.

So every time you update WINDOWS, the backup files are stored in your Windows system folder in hidden mode meaning that, over the medium and long term, these backup files, along with the RESTORE POINT ones, will accumulate using a large size of your hard disk space.

But heck... if an UPDATE causes problems to your system, this will usually become evident a few minutes after receiving the update, so there is no need for users to keep BACKUP FILES older than a couple of weeks.

I’ve just used TUNE UP UTILITIES, to remove old restore points a few hours ago (but you can do that even manually) and as a result of this I was able to clear up almost 2 GB of useless crap in one go....LOL!

Cheers from Italy!

Reply   |   Comment by Giovanni  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+18)
#27

I use Overdisk which is freeware.
It is only 500k, is much faster and more intuitive.
It adds a context menu ( Right click ) feature whereby you can quickly zoom in on directories and sub-directories.

Here are some places to view screenshots, read reviews, and download the program.

http://overdisk.en.softonic.com/
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/overdisk.html
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/OverDisk.shtml

"OverDisk is an interactive disk space explorer that displays your hard drive with clickable charts, allowing you to spot files and folders that are the most space consuming, and also get an overall idea of how your disk space is used. It can display charts based on physical size, logical size or wasted space and allows you to quickly browse and explorer a folder with a single click."

"OverDisk Displays Your Disk Usage as a Radial Map

Windows only: If you're looking for a fast way to visualize and drill down through what's taking up space on your disk drives, OverDisk generates a radial map of your folder structures for quick navigation.

If you were jealous of the radial map disk view found in the previously posted, Linux-only toolsFilelight and Baobab, OverDisk brings that same circular goodness to your Windows machine. Point it at any disk or directory and it analyzes the contents and returns a radial map of the folders and files found within. Analysis was surprisingly snappy in a test run, as OverDisk crunched the numbers on 800GB worth of files in under 15 seconds."

Reply   |   Comment by Tom Potter  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+23)
#26

My view on People giving Free Alternatives here (often "wrapped" and presented with links) is similar to Vhizzy's - They really are SUGGESTIONS and if at the same time it might look like "promoting" other Developers - then it's either unfortunate, or added Bonus for Software "worth every penny" even if it's Free(!!) because it's that good?:)

It's only human nature to share "Good News" with Others - and to compare (forever..:) Software of the Day to similar. Nothing sinister, or "shilling" about that, and indeed if you missed something good on the Day - at least you don't kick yourself (too much, lol), because there are these Goodies performing similar or better jobs.
Something tested and trusted? (I don't believe that Users would mislead Others on purpose - if anything - suggested Software might not work well with your personal PC settings and circumstances, the very much same Principle applies off course to GAOTD!).

But they are always, always welcome - and I for sure am grateful for these free Alternatives - as I am for People giving testimonials on downloaded and tested Offers of the Day. Whenever I personally can take any Software "on board" and test it - I will gladly share my findings with Others - and if I have any useful Free Alternatives - that would be also disclosed.

Don't hog - share!:))

Reply   |   Comment by fran  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+47)
#25

#3 I went to the link you gave all of us and tried to install the software you suggested(WinDrStat) and this is the pop-up I got instead.

The installer you are trying to use is corrupted or incomplete.
This could be a result of a damaged disk, a failed download or a virus.
You may want to contact the author of this installer to obtain a new copy.
It may be possible to skip this check by using the /NCRC command line switch (NOT RECOMMENDED)
NO THANK YOU!

Reply   |   Comment by ron  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-16)
#24

DUAL MONITOR ISSUE

I have 2 monitors, one is my TV for videos. This program opens spanning both screens (one is not in use and has no desktop) and I have to turn on my TV and change my layout to dual desktops just to move it over. (ATI HD4500) It's 2011 and the author should be aware that people have dual monitors for home theater use. It's a basic programmers mistake that I hope isn't in the future versions of this software.

I can't try what I can't see, or have to re-configure displays each time it's opened so I will be uninstalling. I hope they fix this flaw, it's a "no brainer" fix in the code compile.

Reply   |   Comment by Amy  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#23

I forgot to mention in my previous comment, the alternative SpaceSniffer doesn't have to be run as an administrator, but depending upon options selected, it will work better when Run as an Administrator because it will have access to various types of information on more files.

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+13)
#22

DiskAnalyzer Pro installed cleanly, but it's not compliant with Vista+. Lack of Aero support gives it a dated appearance, but the bigger issue is that it's trying to write to a protected folder and isn't multi-user aware, so Vista+ will virtualize its settings per-user. You can edit the definitions for file types, like video, but certainly Microsoft standards like DVR-MS and WTV should be included in the defaults.

While the various reports that DiskAnalyzer generates are interesting, I don't find most of them to be particularly useful, but others may. The lack of update progress is annoying. The main reason that people use this type of application is to manage space, and there are a number of very good freeware apps for doing that. People have mentioned WinDirStat (Win7 did an XP SP2 compatibility reinstall, which indicates coding issues); I like SpaceSniffer, which is more sophisticated and updates in realtime (you may see a lot of flashing on your system drive if you're not zoomed in). SpaceSniffer can export but may not display small files, it's designed to find space-users. Personally, I like radial-file/folder displays. GOTD offered one previously, Disk Space Fan Pro (a free version is available), but it was buggy and generated a large file index which it left lying around. Raxco PerfectDisk 11 Professional had a good one, but they've dropped the space management features in version 12. As I was preparing this comment, someone mentioned another one which I've seen but haven't tried, it doesn't look very sophisticated.

I have some observations about a couple of issues which are commented on all the time here on GOTD. On Vista+, running things as an Administrator carries serious implications and shouldn't be done lightly. Many people here are still living in decade-old XP-world. Vista+ has enhanced security. On Vista+, running programs in an administrator account doesn't automatically give them administrator privileges. Running a program as an administrator carries all sorts of implications, such as preventing per-user virtualization of settings for non-compliant programs, but more importantly, you're explicitly giving the program permission to do almost anything on your computer. Security should not be disabled or circumvented just to run some badly-written giveaway. If you try to move a portable app to Program Files, you may run into issues because it's likely to try to write to that folder, which is normally supposed to be read-only. Virtualization may or may not occur, there are implications either way.

Portable applications are a bad idea on Vista+. They don't get handled as normal programs by Windows Search, which is an integral part of Vista+ (especially Win7, which has a very sophisticated Windows Search). They have zero protection. Program Files and Windows are protected locations on Vista+. Installing to other locations, including a folder named "Program Files" on other than your system drive results in no protection, any other program can modify programs installed to non-standard locations. This opens a significant attack vector when combined with "Run as Administrator". If non-privileged code modifies an unprotected portable application which is set to Run as Administrator, the malware can directly gain Administrator rights and do almost anything.

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+50)
#21

To Reflection Software: Thanks for the opportunity to test the software. I'm still comparing it to others but am truly grateful for your generosity.

Reply   |   Comment by Kerry  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#20

I prefer the free Scanner, available from http://steffengerlach.de/freeware/.
I find that its unique concentric pie chart, to display the usage of the hard disk, is much more intuitive.

Reply   |   Comment by Harrym  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#19

I'd also like to thank GOTD for all the cool stuff as well as the knowledgeable reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Reply   |   Comment by bjflanagan  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#18

Another freeware option that I have in my bookmarks database (to look at when I get some free time... one day)
http://www.getfoldersize.com/en_getfoldersize.htm
==
Same developer also has a freeware duplicate file remover -
http://www.getfoldersize.com/en_alldup.htm
(It doesn't look too pretty - but it's performance that counts).

Disclaimer: I haven't used either of them yet, just sharing that someone might find them useful.

Reply   |   Comment by BuBBy  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+19)
#17

@shipdog I do not agree. On the Dutch GOTD page there will always be freeware alternatives presented for every software given away by GOTD.
Not only to have a comparison with the current giveaway but also for people that missed todays giveaway and thus have the possibility to have such program if they missed out on the days offer. These freeware alternatives are always presented by a group of 3 or 4 people and are never presented by a shill. you really think software developers check out GOTD to see if there is software presented that they offer too, bit paranoia don't you think?.

About todays offer, installed fine and registered without problem, i might try it out for a while although i do not see the advantage for me personaly

Reply   |   Comment by whizzy  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+57)
#16

Advantages of TreeSize Free Edition: Very fast (250GB HDD scanned in three minutes), and free.

Advantages of DiskAnalyzer Pro (paid only): Pretty interface.

DiskAnalyzer Pro seems to act like an anti-virus or malware scanner when compiling the data. It takes a very very long time - 45 minutes to scan a 250GB HDD.

Software also says I have 4x 1TB External HDD, when in fact I only have one with two partitions. It identified one of my partitions on the internal HDD as being a seperate 1TB External HDD.

In any case, with TreeSize's free version being a far speedier alternative, I doubt I would even use this software given free here for today. Sorry.

Reply   |   Comment by KTUK  –  12 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+10)
Add a comment

iPhone app giveaways »

Tilterpillar Giveaway
Play this classic game of "snake" by tilting your device as a controller.
$1.99 ➞ free today
C.H.A.D. Giveaway
A collection of animated stickers about the pool season.
$0.99 ➞ free today
App Secret Giveaway
App Secret offers you a new way to protect your data and keep all the important information untouched.
$1.99 ➞ free today
Modern Ludo Giveaway
Use your bullet to destroy all enemies!
$4.99 ➞ free today
Calendar Widget - Date Widgets Giveaway
Calendar Widget is the app you need for customising your home screen with beautiful calendar.
$0.99 ➞ free today

Android app giveaways »

klocki Giveaway
A relaxing game, loaded with lots of different features.
$0.99 ➞ free today
3D EARTH PRO - local forecast Giveaway
Meet the wonderful 3D Earth. The most beautiful app, ever!
$9.99 ➞ free today
Heat Pump Calculator Giveaway
Installing heat pumps to meet your heating and cooling needs is becoming increasingly popular.
$1.49 ➞ free today
52 Card - Learn & Practice Card Counting Giveaway
52 card lets you learn to count cards in the simplest and easiest way possible.
$1.49 ➞ free today
Passport Photo: ID Photo Print Giveaway
Passport Photo - ID Photo Print is a powerful passport photo editor that will adjust your passport size photo properly.
$4.99 ➞ free today