How can I shrink windows folder?? (Pics of folder sizes included)

[Deleted]

Need to shrink it in order to free up space and upgrade windows 7 -> 10. Any help appreciated!

[wowaccounttom]

mmmm, unless its temporary installation files or internet ones, i would not delete anything from the windows folder....


instead, backup your personal data such as documents, videos, images, browser history & bookmarks.
uninstall programs found in the "Program Files" folder that can easily be installed back such as word processors, browsers, etc
if the folder "Files" is for personal storage, back it up, and delete it.

the folder $WINDOWS.~BT might not be needed, look up the name and see if you can safely delete it

thoseshould help you free up some space...


another thing you could try, is to see if the windows installation files can be saved to another hard drive and run from there...

[Blackmist]

And here's why 120GB SSDs are a terrible idea.

Really good 500GB drives can be had for ~£120, so I've no idea why everyone feels the need to save a few pennies here.

[Deleted]

1. Open Start.
2. Type "Disk Cleanup"
3. Select C: then Click OK.
4. Click "Clean up system files"
5. Select C: then Click OK.
6. Select all elements from the list then Click OK.
7. Wait.
8. Profit.

[noteworthynerd]

1. Open Start.
2. Type "Disk Cleanup"
3. Select C: then Click OK.
4. Click "Clean up system files"
5. Select C: then Click OK.
6. Select all elements from the list then Click OK.
7. Wait.
8. Profit.

This. The Installer and winsxs folders are both used for Windows (and Windows Update) system files. Disk Cleanup will shrink them a little, but typically only a few gigabytes if you're lucky; still, that's the only safe tool to use in most cases. You definitely should not delete them.

That being said, 25GB in the Installer folder is quite excessive, most of the servers I've seen don't even have that much. What is in there?

[Deleted]

That being said, 25GB in the Installer folder is quite excessive, most of the servers I've seen don't even have that much. What is in there?

He prolly never cleaned up the pre-upgrade Windows files.

- - - Updated - - -

And here's why 120GB SSDs are a terrible idea.

120GB for the OS alone is more than fine.

Less so when you keep a baggage of older installations, temp files etc..

[Deleted]

I only did disk cleanup, delete shadow copies etc and all that recently when the space was running low (almost no space was freed). Other than that it's been untouched since installing windows 2½ years ago aprox

So is it possible to reduce install folder size now?

[Deleted]

1. Open Start.
2. Type "Disk Cleanup"
3. Select C: then Click OK.
4. Click "Clean up system files"
5. Select C: then Click OK.
6. Select all elements from the list then Click OK.
7. Wait.
8. Profit.

Doing what LeRoy suggested but run as Administrator will allow it to clean slightly more files up.

It is also relatively safe to delete any files found in "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\" (Don't delete anything else from C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution or the Download folder itself. )

However if you are using the Windows 10 upgrade that comes via Windows Update this will not help that much. (If the download is already under way for Windows 10 don't delete anything from this folder you will only have to start again.)

My only other suggestion would be copy all of your music/documents/pictures and any other files that are user generated onto an external drive and replace them after the upgrade.

[Denpepe]

You can always run http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/s...fer/index.html to see what is taking up space in more detail.

[Crillam]

Well, deleting any windows files would be a bad idea. Do what LeRoy said, also I would recomend to use win 10, I dont think you do use it, by the size of that win folder. On my SSD windows only uses around 30 I believe. So there is profit.

[Deleted]

Doing what LeRoy suggested but run as Administrator will allow it to clean slightly more files up.

That's what happens when the user does:

4. Click "Clean up system files"

[Deleted]

That's what happens when the user does:

Yes it will run the same process but running as Administrator gives the application elevated privileges allowing it to access and delete further files.

[TaintedOne]

And here's why 120GB SSDs are a terrible idea.

Really good 500GB drives can be had for ~£120, so I've no idea why everyone feels the need to save a few pennies here.

A few years ago they were ~£700. Not everyone bought their SSD yesterday. 120GB is fine for OS and a few games. No reason to upgrade really unless you have a free £120 to through around. Then by all means go for it.

[Wythel]

My Windows folder is less than 6 GB, running W10 Pro 64 since last August.

Too much crap, use CCleaner or at least windows built in HDD cleaner.

[Deleted]

Yes it will run the same process but running as Administrator gives the application elevated privileges allowing it to access and delete further files.

You don't get it. When they click there the program asks the elevation.

[Twoddle]

Get rid of that Installer directory, manually delete it. All old install files can be deleted but for some reason windows keeps them hanging about. Your System32 folder does look rather large, it's twice the size of mine. $WINDOWS.~BT?, Yeah I have that too, still sitting there after a failed windows 10 SP update, haven't got round to sorting that one out.

WinSxS is Microsoft's latest joke. The idea is that it stores a repository of old dlls "just in case" so that programs that install new versions of a dll into the system don't break programs that rely on the old dll versions. Most of those files will never be used at all, there are thousands of files and folders in there containing many duplicates of the exact same file. Windows 10 does a lot of work in the background scanning and maintaining them which you can see by using a program like Process Monitor.

[Ciddy]

I think that $Windows.~BT folder contains the files you need for upgrading to Windows 10, so if you're planning to upgrade, I wouldn't touch that folder.

Might be worth running ccleaner to see what it can clean up for you. It might get a bit more than what disk cleanup does. Although I would keep in mind that it also cleans things like browsing history/saved passwords unless you tell it not to.

- - - Updated - - -

And here's why 120GB SSDs are a terrible idea.

I'm actually still running with a 120GB SSD as my system drive, although I literally have nothing but the OS on it. I have a second SSD with my important stuff/games and a 1TB HDD for storage. The 120GB usually hovers at around 30GB of free space. Considering all the bad stuff I've heard about OCZ, I guess I just got really lucky with my Vertex 3 because it has been working quite well for years.

That said, I'll probably get a bigger SSD and consolidate them one day when I'm not feeling lazy.

[Chaelexi]

Check to see if your logs are correctly clearing. This can cause up to 25-30gb of space to be taken. Check you c:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder there should only be .cab and a CBS text file. IF there are files that are .log or listed as log files under Type you want to delete all of them except the newest one and reboot your computer. This will force windows to archive these files in the .cab files they are supposed to be in. After doing this go into you c:\Windows\Temp if there are files that are called cab_xxxx (where xxxx is a bunch of numbers/letters) you can delete these as they are the logs that did not get compressed and are taking up the space on your harddrive.