Windows 10: WINSXS folder will not clear down using DISM or SFC / Disk cleanup

Hi,

I have 3000 Windows 10 LTSC 1609 devices to manage and a large majority have the same issue.

They all have 32GB SSD's and the majority of the space is taken up in the WINSXS folder and in turn the Temp\PendingRenames


I have read and tried many articles using DISM commands, SFC Scan and a diskcleaup but nothing works and this folder keeps growing.


I recently put them all into a WSUS managed solution but they still will not clear down this folder.


Is there any other solutions I can use to remove these files?


Thanks for your support

:)

 

Reduce the size of the WinSxS folder

Hi Adrian,

Open File Explorer

Click on your hard drive

On the Manage Tab, click Cleanup

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Start Disk Cleanup again

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

This time in the resulting dialog, click 'Cleanup System Files'

Let Disk Cleanup run another scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Then for more options for reducing the size of that WinSxS folder, please see this Microsoft Article:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardwa...

 

Rigorous cleanup of WinSxS folder?!

For reasons beyond my (sane) comprehension, MS allows the C:\Windows\WinSxS folder to grown indefinitely (and only offers a rather deceptive, faux clean-up option, which only clears out like 29MB or so). Very annoying on a small SSD.

However, I heard you can use the following to do a more profound cleanup:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

You can't uninstall previous items any more this way (I don't care about, really). But is it safe to do so?!

First I thought about creating a Junction to WinSxS (to another drive), but, upon closer inspection, it would appear many hard links exist to the WinSxS folder, so that might not be a good idea.

Thanks.

 

Cannot run sfc /scannow to completion despite being in safe mode and the PendingDeletes and PendingRenames folders exist under %WinDir%\WinSxS\Temp

Following this guide https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...er-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system I start Command Prompt as administrator.





I run this successfully

However on running

It fails at 68% complaining about

The original guide suggests trying in safe mode, which I have to no avail. 
I note that the PendingDeletes and PendingRenames folders exist
under %WinDir%\WinSxS\Temp do exist as the guide further suggests. 
The folders have many files in them.

I am on Windows 10.

I have also tried the steps in: How to Fix: 'sfc /scannow' Fails, Won't Complete my sfcdetails.txt file does not have any errors in it and after doing most of the steps I am have been recommended to try using a windows repair dvd, getting the files from a known good source or running a repair install (if I manage to try this and it also doesn't work I'll update this post)