Windows 10: Drive filling up quickly. Thousands of files stored in C:\$Extend\$Delete folder. How can I...

I have a co-worker who's computer's C drive is filling up every other day with thousands of small files in the C:\$Extend\$Delete folder. I found this using Wiztree running as administrator. After a reboot the files seem to go away, but it is starting to happen with increased regularity. To tell her to just keep rebooting is not really a good solution. Before anyone says to just do a disk cleanup or something of that nature, I have done this already. Here is what I have done so far:


I have Searched the entire file system including hidden folders using WinDirStat, Treesize Free, and WizTree running as administrator

I have done on-line and off-line chkdsk no errors

vssadmin list commands to restrict shadow copy size

dism scans with no problems

Administrative Disk Cleanup nothing useful

Full virus scans with Windows Defender, malwarebytes and Trend Micro


HP Envy 750

Intel I5-7400 @3.00GHz

The PC is running Windows 10 Pro 20H2 64 bit

12GB RAM

130GB SSD


I'm at a loss on what to try next or how to solve the issue without a complete clean install which was just done a month ago anyway. Any suggestions would be appreciated.


I included screen shots of the Wiztree findings





:)

 

C windows installer folder - Delete?

He can do symbolic link redirection and move the files in it to a different location. *Wink
Better try it out in a virtual of first. Just a suggestion.

Like:
First move everything in c:\windows\installer to d:\installercache
Then delete c:\windows\installer folder
Then type this in command mode as admin
mklink /d c:\windows\installer d:\installercache

Removing those installer files is a bad idea. it might prevent you from updating or uninstalling apps.

 

C Drive Keeps Filling Up

Thanks. Extremely interesting article. I followed the steps as outlined, but when I was as the step to Stop the Windows Modules Installer Service, it was already stopped. So I was not quite sure how to proceed, so I abandoned the process. Since I had
already manually deleted most of the cab files, I now have 190 GB free space. I will closely monitor the free space to see how quickly it fills up, and if it fills up as quickly as the article suggests might happen, I will try again to follow the instructions
to see if I can get it to work. With the service already stopped, and set to Manual, if I get to that point again, do you have any suggestions on how to proceed? Thanks again for this very insightful article -- it sure explains a lot.

 

Windows 10 Temp folder filling up with thousands of files

here is what i am getting these temp_1 files keep filling up my m2 drive till its completely full and this happens on a brand new win 10 install in the image below i have just deleted over 60Gb of files and within minutes