Hard-drive space can become a precious commodity, especially if you're using an expensive solid-state drive. However, Windows 7 updates have zero respect for your space, and love to leave update packages hanging around after you're done installing them. That doesn't sound very nice, does it?
Nov 24, 2015 There are two ways to delete Windows 10 update files. The first one is deleting from Windows update an installed update file which sometimes causes the issue. The second is delete the update cached files in Windows 10 using disk cleanup. Delete Windows 10 update files and temporarily cached files: Check Windows 10 Update files. Mar 10, 2016 Computers Delete Windows update files to regain hard-drive space. Windows has always been bad at cleaning up after itself. Take matters into your. Jul 05, 2017 Disk Cleanup 101. RELATED: 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows You can launch Disk Cleanup from the Start menu–just search for “Disk Cleanup”. It will immediately scan for files it can delete and display a list to you. Feb 24, 2015 Disk Cleanup and Temporary Files I had a question about the Disk Cleanup in Windows 7 Home Premium: The disk cleanup box says, 'You can safely delete temporary files that have not been modified in over a week.' When I run disk cleanup, does it only delete files older than one week or all of them? I want to make sure that. Aug 21, 2019 Part 2 How to delete Windows Update Files in several steps You can use Disk Cleanup and the Windows Update Cleanup feature in order to delete Windows update files that you no longer need and only occupies storage that you can utilize for files you actually need. Follow the steps below in order to cleanup Windows Update Files.
Fortunately, there's an easy way to clear out the clutter with tools that are provided in Windows itself (imagine that). While needing to do some extra work to save hard-drive space isn't ideal, at least the option is there. Here's how to clean out old update files, and regain more space for cute kitten GIFs.
Before you get started, make sure you've installed all recent Windows 7 updates.
Step 1: Open the Start menu, type cleanmgr in the search box, then hit Enter. Disk Cleanup will ask you where Windows is installed.
Once it has completed this process, you may have to press the button that says 'Clean up system files.' If you don't see a button, the required options should already be in your list (more on this later).
Step 2: Make sure to check the box next to Windows Update Cleanup and any other files you would like to clean (honestly, all of them) and click OK. Now Disk Cleanup is deleting all of the files for each selection that was made.
(Optional) Step 3: Another option you might want to take advantage of is cleaning out old System Restore files and Shadow Copies. You can do this by clicking on the More Options tab at the top and selecting 'Clean up' under System Restore and Shadow Copies. This deletes all but the most recent of each.
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The Disk Cleanup tool included with Windows can quickly erase various system files and free up disk space. But some things–like “Windows ESD Installation Files” on Windows 10–probably shouldn’t be removed.
For the most part, the items in Disk Cleanup is safe to delete. But, if your computer isn’t running properly, deleting some of these things may prevent you from uninstalling updates, rolling back your operating system, or just troubleshooting a problem, so they’re handy to keep around if you have the space.
Disk Cleanup 101
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You can launch Disk Cleanup from the Start menu–just search for “Disk Cleanup”. It will immediately scan for files it can delete and display a list to you. However, this just shows files you can delete with your current user account’s permissions.
Assuming you have administrator access to the computer, you’ll want to click “Clean Up System Files” to view a complete list of files you can delete.
To remove a group of files, check it. To keep a group of files, ensure it’s unchecked. You’ll see the maximum amount of data you can delete at the top of the window, and how much space you’ll actually save at the bottom. Click “OK” after you’re done selecting data and Disk Cleanup will delete the types of data you want to remove.
Windows ESD Installation Files Are Important
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On Windows 10, there’s now a “Windows ESD installation files” option here. Deleting it can free a few gigabytes of hard disk space. This is probably the most important option on the list, as deleting it could cause you problems.
These ESD files are used for “resetting your PC” to its factory default settings. If you delete these files, you’ll have more disk space–but you won’t have the files necessary to reset your PC. You may need to download Windows 10 installation media if you ever want to reset it.
We recommend not deleting this, unless you desperately need the few gigabytes in hard disk space. Deleting this will make your life harder if you ever want to use the “reset your PC” feature in the future.
Everything Else Disk Cleanup Can DeleteDelete Old Windows Update Files
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So what do all the other options do? We went through Disk Cleanup and made a list. Note that we used Disk Cleanup on a PC running Windows 10 with the Anniversary Update installed. Older versions of Windows may have slightly fewer options. Some options may only appear if you have certain types of system files on your hard drive.
RELATED:How to Free Over 10GB of Disk Space After Installing Windows 10’s May 2019 Update
Remove Unnecessary Files Windows 10
We’ve also seen various other options here. Some only appear on previous versions of Windows, like Windows 7, and some only appear if your computer has certain types of files on its hard drive:
Overall, you can safely delete almost everything in Disk Cleanup as long as you don’t plan on rolling back a device driver, uninstalling an update, or troubleshooting a system problem. But you should probably steer clear of those “Windows ESD Installation files” unless you’re really hurting for space.
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