Active1 month ago
May 16, 2009 By Andreas Stenhall May 16, 2009 SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP 7 Comments When disk space is running out on a system disk, may it be on a server or a client, there are certain things to clean out.
Repair Disk Windows Server 2008 R2
I added the tags
windows-server-2008-r2
and windows-server-2008
because I didn't see a tag for Windows Server Enterprise SP2
.I've seen many articles on using
Disk Cleanup
with Windows Server 2008 R2
but unfortunately they don't apply to us.We have
Windows Server Enterprise SP2
(Copyright is 2007) with two folders (winsxs
and Installer
) that are 11GB and 5GB in size, respectively. That's over 16GB right there.When I run Windows'
Disk Cleanup
utility, I notice that the option Windows Update Cleanup
is not in the list. I also don't see an option that refers to Installer
.Is there another way to delete these folders? There are folders in there from 2008. There are literally 10,000 folder under
winsxs
that were created in years 2008 & 2009.Here's a screenshot of the version of the OS we're using:
Thanks.
rbhat
rbhatrbhat
3 Answers
Don't ever manually delete anything in those folders.
The first one contains multiple versions of system files and DLLs, so that any program can find the exact version it requires, thus solving the long-dreaded 'DLL hell' problem. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of the folder contents growing in size each time any update is installed. But manually deleting anything from there can and will harm your system, possibly to the point of rendering it unusable.
The second folder stores the Windows Installer files for installed applications, so that they are available if you (or the system) need to repair, modify or uninstall an application. If you remove files from there, next time you try to repair, modify or uninstall an application you will be asked to provide its Windows Installer package, which you will probably not have anymore, or which could be quite difficult to extract from the original installation media or setup files.
Just don't touch anything there, even if it takes up some space. Those files need to be there in order for your system to work as intended.
MassimoMassimo54.2k4545 gold badges173173 silver badges290290 bronze badges
I added the tags windows-server-2008-r2 and windows-server-2008 because I didn't see a tag for Windows Server Enterprise SP2.
- That's because there is no such thing. It's either Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition or it's Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition. It isn't just Windows Server Enterprise Edition. If you're going to ask a question the least you can do is figure out how to figure out what version of Windows you're running.As for your question, you can use the Windows Component Clean Tool - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351467%28v=WS.10%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#BKMK_COMPCLN
EDIT:
OK, I get it. Microsoft didn't make it particularly intuitive in Windows Server 2008 to see the Windows version. You can find out by clicking Help...About in the screen you posted a picture of or you can find it by running
joeqwertyjoeqwertyver
from a command prompt and cross referencing the build number.99.1k55 gold badges7070 silver badges152152 bronze badges
The Windows Update Cleanup is only available for Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows 7 counterpart) after installing this update, you use the the counterpart of Windows Vista which never gets this feature.
To cleanup WinSxS you have to manually uninstall old updates.
To know which updates are no longer needed (superseded), open regedit, and go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionComponent Based ServicingComponentDetect
Windows stores here each installed component + installed updates. Good candidates are Internet Explorer updates under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionComponent Based ServicingComponentDetectamd64_microsoft-windows-ie-htmlrendering_31bf3856ad364e35_0.0.0.0_none_933ba3cd22b12888
Each new update replaces ALL older GDR Updates. So look for the highest version number and uninstall the older updates. I did this in Vista/7 time and it saved a large amount of space.
To cleanup the
WindowsInstaller
folder you can try the 3rd party tool PatchCleaner which allows to cleanup old unused MSI/MSP files.Click on
magicandre1981magicandre1981Move
to move the no longer needed files to a network drive, so that in case, the tool has a bug and removing/updating a software requires a MSI/MSP file, you can copy it back.1,01022 gold badges1010 silver badges1818 bronze badges