File Sizes on Computer

[Joe Walton]

Hi Just wondering wether any of you have seen this problem before?

We have a customer that has two computers with windows vista business and a Server on Server 2003, When one of the computers saves a file on the server it is showing as a bigger size on the other computer. e.g. a word file on 1 computer is 10.3kb and on the other computer it is showing as 14.3kb but on the server it is 10.3kb.

both of the Vista buisness computers are exactly the same spec make model etc. I just cant figure out why it is showing bigger on one computer.

Thanks for any help in advance.

And sorry if theres not enough info.

Cheers Joe.

 

[kimsland]

Same filesystem and same 32bit or 64bit OS, and same cluster size? If so I can't see how the size could be different

 

[raybay]

We have seen file sizes change in size, up and down, for no apparent reason, using VISTA with no service pack and Office 2007 with no updates, when Server 2003 is involved... then file size is later resolved with no apparent reason a few days later. When file is moved using USB thumb drive or CD, the file size remained the same from one machine to another.
Was not a big issue in any other way, and was pretty much forgotten.
This was only discovered because users assumed file had been changed, when they had not.

 

[DelJo63]

famous issue

You may recall that SAVE in MS Word does not compact the file size and it apparently grows even when sections are deleted.
To compact a Word document, you perform a SAVE AS and give it a new name.

Likewise, a file native to SystemA will likely have a different size when copied to SystemB -- the free space in the A instance gets deleted when copied.

 

[raybay]

Gosh, Jobeard, that is well known, and a simple thing to check. That was not the problem with our client's computer... however.

And your statement "...a file native..." doesn't seem quite right for this situation... or most Microsoft Office 200, XP, 2003, and 2007 files... in our experience... and retested just now in our shop... Rarely have I seen much change in file size since Office versions first came out.

 

[DelJo63]

like me, "that may well be HISTORIC information" -- which today is no longer applicable

sorry for the injection of noise.