Effective Winsxs Directory Management: Free Up Disk Space on Windows 11 in a Flash

This is among the usually asked questions: can I delete WinSxS folder to free up some disk space?

The answer is, no.

Nor can you delete everything in the WinSxS folder, because some of the files are important for Windows to run and update. Basically, WinSxS folder is where the files needed for your Windows are, as well as backups and/or updates of those files.

But there are many ways you can use to reduce the size for your WinSxS folder on Windows 10. In this post, we will be introducing two of them. So you will at least have one option that works.

1. Use Disk Cleanup

2. Use DISM Tool

WARNING : It is never suggested that you use a third-party tool to cleanup your WinSxS file, since faulty deleting the whole folder or some files in the folder might end up breaking your computer, making it impossible to boot or update.

1. Use Disk Cleanup

Disk cleanup is a built-in tool that helps you delete temporary files. To run it, just follow:

1. On your keyboard, pressWindows logo button, then type indisk cleanup . Then chooseDisk Cleanup from the list.

2. If you haven’t changed the location where you placed your system file, choose**(C:)** and clickOK . If you have changed the file location before, choose the correct file directory accordingly.

3. UnderFiles to delete sector, tick the boxes before the files you don’t need anymore and then hitOK to delete them. Select to highlight the file name to see more detailed information if you want.

4. If you need to free more space, you can also chooseClean up system files .

Then you will be prompted to choose which system drive you want to clean up. Choose accordingly and the clean process will start right away.

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2. Use DISM Tool

DISM stands for Deployment Image & Servicing Management. It is a tool that allows you to make changes to Windows features, packages, drivers, and international settings. In this case, we will use it to help us clean up our WinSxS folder.

The process may take a long time. It some cases, it could take up to 30 minutes. Please don’t worry when it’s not finished after a long time. Please be patient until the process finishes.

1. On your keyboard, press Windows logo key and X at the same time, then choose Command Prompt (Admin) .

When prompted with the UAC, hit Yes to continue.

2. In DISM window, type in or copy and paste in the following command:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

This command helps you clean up files when your system is not in use.

3. Check for possible typo. Then hitEnter .

4. In the same DISM window, type in or copy and paste in the following command:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

This command helps you remove all superseded versions of every component in the component store.

5. Make sure you have made no typo and hitEnter . Wait for it to finish.

6. Still in the same window, type in or copy and paste in the following command:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded

This command helps you reduce the amount of space used by a Service Pack.

7. Make sure that you have made no typo and hit Enter.

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If you need more assistance, feel free to leave us comment and we will see what else we can do to help.

Hope your problem solved!

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