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Reduce size of winsxs on SBS2011 Essentials?
I know there are a lot of posts here about the size of the winsxs folder, but nothing has given me a way to address the size.
I have a client running SBS2011 Essentials, SP1. Their C:\ drive is about 60GB, and 28GB of it is taken up by winsxs. Some files in winsxs are dated as old as July 2009. I can't believe there is a valid reason to have files saved here that are almost 10 years old. C:\ is down to 2GB free. Nothing else is taking "unusual" space... the closest folder is system32 at 5GB. I've tried disk cleanup (including system files), I tried "DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /SpSuperseded"... nothing has touched the size of this folder. I just can't believe Microsoft thinks continuing to grow the size of this folder indefinitely is a good design.
There are about 100 files in C:\Windows\winsxs\Temp\Pen
There has to be a way to remove 10+GB from this folder without causing potential system issues. There are lots of warnings about not deleting files from this folder because that might make the system have problems with future updates, or worse... but I find it hard to believe that 28GB of 1000s of multi-year-old files are needed to ensure successful operation.
Any help on how to free up some of the space taken up by winsxs would be appreciated.
I have a client running SBS2011 Essentials, SP1. Their C:\ drive is about 60GB, and 28GB of it is taken up by winsxs. Some files in winsxs are dated as old as July 2009. I can't believe there is a valid reason to have files saved here that are almost 10 years old. C:\ is down to 2GB free. Nothing else is taking "unusual" space... the closest folder is system32 at 5GB. I've tried disk cleanup (including system files), I tried "DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /SpSuperseded"... nothing has touched the size of this folder. I just can't believe Microsoft thinks continuing to grow the size of this folder indefinitely is a good design.
There are about 100 files in C:\Windows\winsxs\Temp\Pen
There has to be a way to remove 10+GB from this folder without causing potential system issues. There are lots of warnings about not deleting files from this folder because that might make the system have problems with future updates, or worse... but I find it hard to believe that 28GB of 1000s of multi-year-old files are needed to ensure successful operation.
Any help on how to free up some of the space taken up by winsxs would be appreciated.
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Then you need a larger drive. The reason there is not information on reducing WinSXS is that you cannot except for Disk Cleanup. So if you have nowhere to go, you need bigger disks.
Maybe time for a new Server.
Follow up note to "nothing is ever thrown out": Actually it is maintained and should level out something below 15GB if the server OS is operating properly.
Make sure you are running Updates.
Maybe time for a new Server.
Follow up note to "nothing is ever thrown out": Actually it is maintained and should level out something below 15GB if the server OS is operating properly.
Make sure you are running Updates.
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ASKER
I ran disk cleanup once (checking all the boxes I could), but nothing changed. Just on a whim, I ran it a second time and now we have 11GB free space (9GB reduction in winsxs). Not sure why it needed to be run twice, but it's better now. BTW, when the client purchased this server 7+ years ago, this was the largest hard drive offered by the manufacturer for SBS. I wish it was much bigger, but that's a project for another time.
Thanks for the update
ASKER
I have run disk cleanup (including System Files). Got rid of about 0.5GB.
C:\ used to have 30GB free... nothing has grown except this ridiculous winsxs folder. I can't believe Microsoft doesn't have a way to purge old files from this folder. I understand that the folder is needed, but this is like a case of "hoarders" on TV... nothing is ever thrown out.