How To Clean Winsxs Folder In Windows Server 2012 R2

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Hello Everyone,

I was hoping someone could help me cleanup the winsxs folder on the C drive of a few servers.

Background

The C drive's on a few of the servers I support are almost full. They are all windows server 2008 but some are sp1 and others are sp2. I was told to be very carefull with this folder because deleting the wrong files could mess up the server. Any advice would be much appreciated.

The drive I am looking at now has about 56 Gb's used and 11 Gb's free Its is a windows 2008 R2 SP2.

The winsxs folder is at about 25 Gb's full right now.

I tried this https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2852386/disk-cleanup-wizard-addon-lets-users-delete-outdate...

But the file would not download.

Any thought's ?

If you have desktop experience installed run disk cleanup then click cleanup system files, this will do it for you, or there is option 2

using dism

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dn251565.aspx

20 Replies

If you have desktop experience installed run disk cleanup then click cleanup system files, this will do it for you, or there is option 2

using dism

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dn251565.aspx

The download worked for me by the way

Ccleaner maybe? I'd leave that winsxs folder alone.

Sid Phiilips wrote:

Ccleaner maybe? I'd leave that winsxs folder alone.

See the link I posted, DISM will do it for you, as will disk cleanup but for newer servers OSes the 'desktop experience' feature needs to be installed.

I am looking at the link Rod-IT posted and it says that using DISM is for windows 8.1 and later.

I am also trying to open the start component cleanup but when I get to the "windows" category in task scheduler there is no category for servicing i do not see the category for servicing

control panel/System and Maintenance/Administrative tools/Task Scheduler/ Microsoft/Windows/Servicing?

I may need to install desktop experience

Sorry it took WAY too long to get back but I think I have a fix but I wanted to runit by the forum first.

A few of you mentioned that DISM should work to fix the size of the winsxs folder.

the command I found online is

DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /spsuperseded

I wanted to know if anyone has tried this before I go ahead and execute this command

I have heard that the winsxs folder is very important and I don't want to foul anything up anymore than I have already.

Thanks Guys

That command works fine, it only cleans up service pack information though

The drive in question is only 40Gbs and only has about 4.33 Gb of free space.

The winsxs folder is 14 Gb

Do you think I will see any major difference

run it and find out. Worst case is, no.

after I run the command the output says

"Service Pack Cleanup cant't proceed: No service pack backup files were found. The operation Completed successfully"

I saw no changes to the size of the the folder

As I would expect you not to, service packs are rare these days and once applied are usually from pre-bundled media.

There isn't much else you can do without compressing the folder.

Add more space?

Nah that's a little above my skillset right now. Its a pretty old server that should have been replaced a few years ago,

maybe thats why they let the newb handle it.

I have about 4 servers that I am currently trying to find space for, the command seems to be working on one right now and two of them displayed the output I just mentioned up top.

another displayed the output "DISM.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file"

I have another command that might work DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /SpSuperseded

What do you think should I try it

That's the same command as above, it only cleans up old service pack information

You're right

thought if I left the .exe off it would make a difference.

On the bright side, one of the servers now has 25 Gb's of free space. and that's an improvement.

Thanks you soo much for all your help I will try to ask one of the other techs at work if they have any other suggestions and I will continue to plug away.

c:\windows\temp can be emptied

c:\inetpub\logs if one exists

c:\windows\logs

There are many folders but depends on the servers role

the server I am currently working on os running

Active Directory,DHCP,DNS and File services

I jus tsaw an article http://blog.willbeattie.net/2013/06/freeing-disk-space-on-c-windows-server.html

what do you think about deleting the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution

I would compress the folder before you delete anything or expand the space.

I also found this

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows

that would free up about 2.5 Gbs.

I have no idea what this file is

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