Windows 10: Storage Space Issue

Hi - I have a low spec notebook with Windows 10 preinstalled. Low spec is fine for my purposes but my 32 GB SSD is almost full and this seems to be stopping Windows from updating. Actually I have 7 GB of free space, which I assumed would be sufficient for the update but apparently not. But there is another related issue. When I check storage space under settings, there is 5.09 GB referred to as "other".





When I open this category, it reveals 7 folders and sizes:





These sizes hardly add to 5.09 GB so I investigated further...

When I open these folders and check properties, most of the sizes above are correct. The exception is C:\eSupport. Within this folder, there are two subfolders - 'eDriver' 1.51 GB and 'Manual' 217 MB. So this explains a portion of the 5.09 GB - perhaps - but where is the rest?

Can anyone tell me how to regain some or all of the 'phantom' 5.09 GB under the category of 'other'?

:)

 

Non-paged pool grows to consume all memory after Creators Update (possibly Storage Spaces related)

I don't know if it is the same for all users, but for me it was the combination of Storage Spaces and ReFS filesystem.

I recreated my ReFS partitions as NTFS and the issue went away for me.

So the exact steps I took to fix the issue were:

Create NTFS storage space, copy everything over from ReFS storage space, then delete the ReFS storage space

 

Windows 10 Storage Space DISAPPEARED??

If two different Windows 10 (must be same versions) can't see the Storage Space then it is hosed.

Storage Spaces is flexible but not quite as recoverable when issues arise as a hardware raid could have.

I've had this happen before and the Storage Space was gone. I redid the Storage Space, restored from backup, and it's been working fine since. I have no idea what corrupted it previously.

Good luck!

 

I'm not sure on the other files, but if your device has a SD slot, you could pick up and SD pretty cheap and move some stuff over to free up space.

 

You could try treesize free and run it as administrator instead. That will tell you where you have big things.

The storage app is rather unreliable. For example mine at the moment says I've used 50GB/57.4GB on my 32GB C drive. This is obviously nonsense.





Note also if you have a SD card there has been a recent fix to try to use it when upgrading to 1511 release (previously it didn't help). If so you might want to make sure you have all windows updates before trying again.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...b-c6bf4a39aa6e

 

There are hidden files (appdata. pagefiles, hibernation files etc) that you cannot see.

You actually need about 8GB. You do not need to free up much extra space.

Run disk cleanup, selecting to cleanup system files.

You could disable the hibernation file if activated.

You may have to move stuff from you users directory to another drive temporarily.

 

You can see then with treesize - that is the point.

 

Thanks for your replies.
I do have a micro SD slot and a 32 GB SD card came with the device but I only have a few hundred MB of user files and to my knowledge all of these are now on the SD card.
I downloaded the free version of TreeSize - thanks for the tip. Ive included a screenshot because it shows up something interesting that I need your help with.





What is the application usmt.ppkg, which is 5.1 GB in size and can I delete it?
A large part of the size for the user file is AppData > Local > Microsoft > OneNote. There's a cache folder and a backup folder which both seem to include the same files. Perhaps I can save some space here. Also, under Users, there is also a pagefile.sys consuming 1.4 GB of space and I wonder what this is? I did have photoshop installed but uninstalled it. I know photoshop uses page files.
32 GB is admittedly small but I hadn't figured most of this space would be taken up by the OS itself. I'm not a fan of Win 10.

 

Sorry in advance if this post seems a bit long or complicated. It is a bit of a struggle upgrading if you have a small disk but you can do it. I upgraded when my disk was 22GB so it really should be possible for you (I've increased it to 32GB now to make it easier for me).

usmt.ppkg is part of your ASUS (or whatever) recovery image (Lab 2b: Windows desktop apps and data: capturing changes - Windows 10 hardware dev). As I understand it if you do a reset it will reset using the standard Microsoft windows image and then apply the differences that are in this file. So it will be all the software / settings your tablet came with. You could back it up and delete it for the purpose of upgrade. Whether you put it back after the upgrade depends on whether you ever want to restore back to factory settings.

What I don't know is if (considering it is a file of changes between a standard wim and whatever ASUS changed it with) whether it would even work at all after an upgrade. I'd guess quite likely not but I've never used it. @Kyhi has done some testing with this I think - he might know.

In any case I wouldn't want to waste 5GB out of 32GB sitting around in the off change I might want to restore to factory settings. Much better to backup the whole disk, delete it and then if at some point in the future you want it you've still got it. You can use Macrium or many other softwares to make a backup image.

For OneNote if you are synching it to your MS account you could just uninstall it. After you upgrade it will be installed again and will download everything from OneDrive. If you are not using OneDrive but OneNote as part of Office you can still back it up and delete it - the method depends on what version you are using but you can check it by googling "Backup OneNote 2013" or whatever version you are using.

The pagefile is the standard size. For the upgrade you could go and change it to 200MB and change it back to system managed after. Don't make it zero (as you'll not get any dump information if there is a problem) but you could save 1.2GB there. The tradeoff is it might (but probably will not) make things a bit slower if you didn't change it back. See Virtual Memory Paging File - Change

If you are still short of space other things you could do (until you have enough space)

• Turn off hibernation with powercfg -h off
  
  
• Uninstall apps you don't want (for all users so they are actually deleted) Option 3 here Apps - Uninstall in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums and run both Remove-AppxPackage and Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage options.
  In my case I had to uninstall all of them. They are reinstalled with updated versions by the upgrade anyway. That saves ~1GB.
  
  
• your OS is already compact but your could compact other directories as well by running these commands:
  • compact /c /s /a /f /q /i /exe:xpress16k "C:\Program Files\*"
  • compact /c /s /a /f /q /i /exe:xpress16k "C:\Program Files (x86)\*"
  • compact /c /s /a /f /q /i /exe:xpress8k "C:\Windows\Assembly*"
  • compact /c /s /a /f /q /i /exe:lzx "C:\Windows\Installer\*"
• run disk cleanup Disk Cleanup - Open and Use in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
  
• turn off system protection System Protection - Turn On or Off for Drives in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
  
• run the command DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
  
• delete everything from C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
  
• Download and run Temp File Cleaner
  
• run the command defrag /c /h /o

After you have upgraded you can run disk cleanup again and your storage will be back to (or slightly less than) when you started. You can then restore all the files/settings etc to what they were before.

For your information, 1511 for me (including office and all my programs) takes just over 11GB so with 32GB you should have plenty really. I'd blame it on ASUS.

 

After a MS Windows 10 installation the OEM captures any drivers or Apps into a *.ppkg ( basically a custom wim)
windows recovery rebuilds itself from the component store and then applies the OEM .ppkg

removing the .ppgk from the Recovery\customizations folder - restores windows only
and not the OEM customizations..

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...dows-10-a.html


If you go into Control panel > Recovery > Create a Recovery Drive
This will write to a USB - the Factory ( Bare Metal Reset ) Recovery Feature

You can the Save the USB or Save all the files on the USB - into a folder on another drive, PC or Cloud..
Then you can delete the 5GB of customizations...

Or just Save That customizations Folder and .ppkg somewhere else - then delete it from your current OS..

My only concern is if it is a single instanced ppkg... So a recovery drive is the Best option - before deleting the customizations folder and the 5GB custiomizations package

 

I really appreciate your efforts lx07 and Kyhi.
Kyhi - I attempted the second of your two options, but trying to drag copy usmt.ppkg from TreeSize to my SD card evokes a 'File too large' message and it won't copy, despite the fact I have 27.9 GB free on this drive and using admin rights.





Also, after changing the attributes to show all hidden files, the c:\Recovery\Customizations folder, where TreeSize reports this file to be, is simply not there/accessible so I have no way {of trying} to copy this bloated file except through TreeSize.

Your first option is looking more appealing and this bothers me.

 

Your SD card is formatted FAT32 file system (they almost always are when you buy them by default) which has a maximum file size of 4GB. You need to re-format it NTFS - right click on the SD card in file explorer and take the "format" option - something like this....





Doing this will delete everything on it though so you have to copy any contents somewhere and then copy them back after.

You must not only tick the "Show hidden Files" option but untick the "hide operating system protected files" in file explorer > view > options





You don't need to do the second to make a recovery drive - just to see it in file explorer...

 

100% the reason..

 

Again, thanks for your tips and I'm sorry for the delay in getting back - I've been on the road.

So I reformatted my SD card and after fiddling with folder access issues and permissions was able to copy across usmt.ppkg. The problem is, however, that I cannot now delete usmt.ppkg from C:\Recovery\Customizations and instead receive this message...





I tried a little utility called Unlocker that I use under Windows 7 for just this type of scenario. Unlocker revealed there was no locking application and agreed to delete usmt.ppkg at the next reboot. I rebooted but the file remains.

I don't know why this file would be open in System. In task manager it is not a start-up app and I cannot find it running as a process. I wondered whether this was another permissions issue but inspection of its properties reveals everyone to have full control over this file. I would like to get rid of it for the 5GB of precious system drive space it occupies but then I wonder if I may have issues in copying it back should the need arise.

Lx07 - about compacting: If I compact the folders as you say, won't this slow my system as they unpack? I am yet to follow some of your other suggestions. There are heaps and I thank you for these.

 

It might make it slower but then again it might make it faster - it depends if the total time of reading (less) from disk and then decompressing is faster or slower than just reading the larger uncompressed object. That is to say on the balance of your specific CPU and disk IO speed. For me using compression is a little bit faster than not - you can see here for some measurements.

In any case you can uncompress the directories again by using the compact /u after the upgrade if it is slower to put it all back to normal.

You don't have to do all the options to reduce size - just enough to get the space you need.

I'm not sure why you can't delete the ppkg file as I don't have one. You could try safe mode perhaps.