The more apps we add, and photos and videos and whatever else, the more disk space it all takes up. But we can control that. Too many photos and you can simply move some of them elsewhere, like an external drive or DVDs, and delete some [or all] of them on disk. When it comes to the disk space that Windows takes up, it’s not nearly as easy, but you can reclaim some wasted space. Whether it’s worth it to you or not varies… if you’ve got more than enough free disk space, or just don’t want to be bothered, nothing terribly bad is going to happen if you just leave things alone. Do remember though, that unlike conventional hard disk drives, SSDs work best when they have 20-50% free space.
That does not mean you cannot use 100% of an SSD’s capacity. Having extra free space can improve an SSD’s longevity -- macworld[.]com/article/704243/how-much-storage-you-should-leave-unused-on-a-macs-ssd.html – while reviewers measuring SSD performance have found that SSD read/write speeds generally tend to decrease as the drive gets somewhere around 1/2 full. If you’re curious or in doubt when it comes to that second point, performance, install the free Crystal Disk Mark app from Windows Store, and benchmark your SSD before you reach the 50% mark, and then as you start going beyond that.
While I don’t like waste as a rule, my motivation to keep Windows footprint as small as possible is purely practical. I regularly perform disk image backups, and then copy those backups to external drives for extra safety. Both creating the backup and copying the archive takes longer the more disk space used, plus the larger the backup archives, the more space it takes to store them. Last week one backup, was 4GB larger than the prior one, leading me to investigate, finding a few problems I’d never seen, or at least noticed before, leading me to write this in case it helps anyone else.
My normal procedure after a Windows or driver update is to run Disk Cleanup – in Win11 it’s in Windows Tools, while in Win10 it’s a button on the properties for a drive in File Explorer. When you run it it’ll scan the drive, then open a window listing categories it can clear – click the button for “Clean up system files”. I check everything in the new window that opens. Disk Cleanup works much faster than it used to, but often leaves more behind, so after a Windows update I then run the following at a command prompt: dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup . To get the command prompt window you can type cmd after clicking the Start Button, and you can also use Terminal – you’ll often have to open a new tab, selecting Command Prompt. Then I’ll usually fire up PC Manager -- pcmanager.microsoft[.]com/en-us?pc=U686&mkt=en&channel=510686&gad=1 . The free PC Manager beta *may* get rid of a little more junk – in truth I have it installed more for its *maybe* increased security than its disk cleaning, since it seems to activate Defender alongside the Bitdefender AV I have installed.
Next I’ll manually delete the files in Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Local\ Temp\, the folder: Windows\ SoftwareDistribution\ Download\, and the files in Windows\ Temp\. Deleting that Download folder also seems to make Windows Update more trouble-free. I’ll also check the Windows\ LiveKernelReports\ folder for any large .dmp files – those dump files can be 1GB or more, and they will not show up if you search the Windows folder for *.dmp files in File Explorer or if you use Disk Cleanup. Something relatively recent, I’ve seen C:\$WinREAgent folders left behind – in Win10 they’re usually empty, so no harm done, but I’ve seen several in Win11 with over 1GB of files, so I’ll delete that folder when/if I see it. As a last step I clear any restore points.
I use the free, portable WizTree to look for overly large files -- diskanalyzer[.]com/?ref=wiztree – and that’s what I used after finding that backup archive was 4GB larger, *after* performing all the above steps. One of the new (?) problems I found was 2-3GB of files/folders in C:\System Volume Information. That’s where Restore Points are stored, and since I’d already cleared them, something definitely was broken [I had Not created any Restore Points BTW, so it was something Windows did]. That folder is restricted access, so to access it you have to use icacls -- learn.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/icacls . I had hoped to just delete the files/folders but turns out they aren’t really located there – it was a hard link. Using Google, I couldn’t find anything directly referencing the problem, but one web page talking about something that *might* have been similar talked about reinstalling Windows. I did that, using the Insider ISO for Win11 23H2, and it didn’t help. Since I already had an image backup [the one that was 4GB larger], I created a Restore Point, then restored it. It took a very long time, it reported that it failed, and the 10MB Restore Point was still listed, but at 500 some MB (?), BUT the garbage files were now gone.
Another problem was a couple of Windows caches had grown overly large – 1GB+ vs. 200-300MB. The folders are located at C:\Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Local\ ConnectedDevicesPlatform\ and have names made up of numbers. You can stop the services using the files, delete them, and Windows will regenerate new ones when the services are (re)started. A fairly easy way to determine which services are using the files is to drag the file or folder onto the open window for LockHunter -- lockhunter[.]com/ [the same kind folks behind USB Safely Remove]. You’ll find Windows Services, which you can use to stop/start services, using search, in Win10 in Control Panel -> Admin Tools, and in Win11 in Windows Tools, or there’s the Services tab in Task Mgr.
Win10 has another cleanup option – removing [deleting] the LCU after an update. Basically, an LCU is a large collection of files & folders left behind by a Windows update that’s located in Windows\ Servicing\. There is some controversy regarding should you / shouldn’t you. community.spiceworks[.]com/how_to/195498-uninstall-problematic-latest-cumulative-update-lcu-from-a-security-kb-that-included-unremovable-servicing-stack-update-ssu
WizTree also pointed out that there were several old driver files & folders that were worth getting rid of. The folder Windows\ System32\ DriverStore\ FileRepository\ stores a copy of every set of hardware drivers installed in Windows, plus several more that are there by default. When you update a driver that newer copy is added alongside any older versions. Windows DiskCleanup is supposed to find and offer to remove those old versions, but it often doesn’t see them. In this case I had a couple of GB worth of old drivers I hadn’t paid attention to when they were installed, because they were all small files – I just had a Bunch of them, and they added up. Now that folder [and all the files/folders inside] is protected, so you can’t just delete them – you need to take over ownership first. The easy way to do that is to add a few lines to the registry – that will add Take Ownership to the right-click context menu. TO add those lines to the registry copy the following to an empty .txt file [e.g., in Notepad], save it, rename the .txt file [SomeName].reg, then double click it to merge the contents into Windows Registry.
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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
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Finally, if you want/need Windows with the smallest disk footprint possible, Google Tiny 10 or Tiny 11. There is not one specific site, but a lot of articles with links that talk about the versions and tools that a developer has made available, including ISOs. By stripping out everything not absolutely necessary, Windows can take up less space..