Windows 10: cleanmgr no longer removes "windows Update Clean-up" files in w10 2004 OS build 19041.423

as title.

even running as administrator via the command prompt cleanmgr via "clean up system files" does not remove "windows Update Clean-up" files anymore. the size of the files there have been slowly growing from 1.7gb to now 2.68gb after each w10 automatic update.

i have tried "andre's method" of dleeting the SoftwareDistribution folder after stopping some services. no luck.

i have tried another method of using the cmd prompt to run cleanmgr with extra sage set, no dice.

it seems my system is going to carry on bloating itself. the drive windows is on is 1tb m.2 2280, space is not an issue, however this is far from working as intended and i like to keep my machine as trim of bloat and unneeded files as possible.





i have restarted the machine after running cleanmgr and i have even tried doing it from safe mode with part of andres method of stopping services.


this does not happen on my old HP pavilion laptop, in fact thatis running fine and windows deletes the files fine.

i have also tried from cmd prompt:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth


sfc /scannow


these report windows as being fine.


any help with this matter would be great. thank you.

:)

 

system clean up

• Right-click start and choose "Run" then type cleanmgr ("cleanup manager") and click OK.
• If asked to choose a drive, pick your C: drive (or wherever Windows is installed).
• In the popup, ignore everything and click the "Clean up system files" button. Don't miss this step.
• Now you can select all the update-related stuff above to clear it out (or clear it all, all of it is safe to remove if you want to free space).

 

Disk Clean up tool

Try 3 steps below:

1. Download TFC Temporary file removal tool . Right click and run as admin.
   Note: This program will kill some background processes in order to delete the locked temp files.
2. Open Admin command and run cleanmgr in extended mode, put check marks on everything:
   %SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:65535
3. Run cleanmgr in normal mode again to see if Temporary Internet Files were deleted.

 

Accidentally Cancelled An Update - Which files can be removed to clear space

• Right-click start and choose "Run" then type cleanmgr ("cleanup manager") and click OK.
• If asked to choose a drive, pick your C: drive (or wherever Windows is installed).
• In the popup, ignore everything and click the "Clean up system files" button. Don't miss this step.
• Now you can select all the update-related stuff above to clear it out (or clear it all, all of it is safe to remove if you want to free space).