Windows 10: Windows takes the entire 32gb of my tablet storage. Alone.

I have a Chinese windows tablet (ezpad mini3), nice tablet but windows alone takes the entire 32GB on it so i cant use it.
I'm a computer technician myself so I'm only looking for an advice from someone with experience on this because I haven't found a clear answer and I don't feel like experimenting.
So what I want to do is move some stuff to a SD card with a symbolic link, I already did this with some non system folders. TreeSize would explain my situation:





so as the pictures show, there's not much to move other then system folders. now as far as I know, moving winsxs is not the best idea and also its not as large as it seems. so I'm left with either Installer or SoftwareDistribution.
does anyone knows if any of those is completely safe to move? does anyone have another suggestion?
Thanks.

by the way, I tried to move the modern apps folder, this was not successful, for some reason they wouldn't open anymore. thing is, I don't need or want any of this trash, so i just deleted the folder and saved some space.

:)

 

Unable to Upgrade to Windows 10, even after success in compatibility report.

1. If the Acer tablet has the 32GB or smaller drive, there is likely not enough disk space available to perform the installation of Windows 10. The download may successfully complete, but Windows 10 will take nearly the entire capacity of a 32GB drive.
(Usually this is about 28GB if there is NO recovery partition. Less if a recovery partition is present.) This is because Windows 10 setup saves your previous Windows installation in "C:\Windows.old".)

2. There are some tablets (not sure if this applies to the Acer) that simply will not boot ANY operating system other than what it shipped with.

3. If your tablet is using a compressed operating system (many with 32GB and smaller storage do this) then Windows 10 cannot be installed because the OS is essentially stored in a single large WIM image file that Windows 10 setup cannot work with at this
time.

Hope this helps.

 

Is it possible to make windows think that the additional sd storage is just more of drive C ?

Original title: internal storage

I just bought a tablet with 32GB storage, and an SD slot to add more.

Is it possible to make windows think that the additional sd storage is just more of drive C ?

In other words, make the 32GB plus another 32GB look like a 64GB "C" drive?

 

Is the Windows OS in the compact state? From a Command Prompt (Admin) or Powrshell (Admin) run:

compact /compactos always

 

Thanks for the answer.
So I checked and the the OS is not in a compact state. query command says that this is because "Windows has determined that, itis not beneficial for this system."
I might still try this out, one question tho, since this is a really low spec device that is already slow (Z8300,2GB - 64bit OS,not so fast eMMC) wouldn't this slow this tablet down because of compression and decompression? (both cpu and ram usage)

 

You won't notice any decrease in performance.

 

Ok, so I did that and now have 1.95GB free. that's a start but I feel like windows update alone may fill that up pretty soon.
so if anyone has any input about my original question as well that would be nice. *Smile

 

Have you tried a thorough disk cleanup using option 2 here:
Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

 

I preformed this, with everything checked. result was 700MB of free space instead of the 2GB I had.
so I restarted the machine to see if that helps, I did get the working on updates screen so maybe windows update filled my storage again?
either way after the restart i now have 1GB of free storage. so not much of a success. and as I'm writing this comment i now have 660Mb left

edit:
ok windows is working on updates. ill let it finish and then we would know the situation better.

 

Check the number of restore points stored in your system and Delete accordingly.

 

32 GB for windows folder alone is waaay too much, here's mine on a full blown desktop computer and hundreds of programs installed:



You should really take more detailed look at it: Download MeinPlatz - MajorGeeks with a program like this.
There's also a very good and safe program to clean up stuff most cleaners miss, using it few years with good results. Download UnCleaner - MajorGeeks

 

Firstly you need to use disk cleanup properly to delete the stuff in software distribution. Then run patchcleaner to get rid of old crap in windows installer directory. Between two, you will gain nearly 12GB.

 

@CountMike I know its too much but well its not my doing, windows 10 is trash IMO. not much i can do about it. uncleaner gave me about 200MB so not too useful.

@cereberus I tried to use disk cleanup, both the normal way and how NavyLCDR suggested. still I only have about 1GB free.

ATM im a bit stuck because windows update will not install updates. it wants an extra 1.5GB which I dont have and didnt manage to free up with any method.
im going to preform disk cleanup again but im not hopeful, so while its doing its thing. any other suggestions?

thanks everyone for trying to help *Smile

 

Hi,
You might go through this one too whether you're dealing with a windows old folder or a update adviser folder might differ :/
Delete Windows.old Folder in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

Delete Windows10Upgrade Folder in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

 

Export the manufacturer specific drivers using dism. Make a backup image of the MMC memory ("hard drive") using Macrium Reflect Free. Do a clean install of Windows 10.