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I recently installed Windows 8.1 on my laptop. I have the Windows folder on its own 64GB mSATA drive. For Windows 7 this was great because the Windows folder was small. With Windows 8.1 the drive is almost full, and the Windows folder takes up almost 20GB (the WinSXS folder takes up most of that space).

Is there a good reason that the Windows folder takes up so much space? Is there a way that I can cut down on some of the space that it takes up?

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    Windows gets incrementally larger with each update, service pack, major version upgrade. Nature of the beast. Nov 4, 2013 at 5:36
  • Have a look at the Disk Cleanup tool in Windows. It can get rid of temp files and the downloaded service packs that is already installed. It won't save you much space, but you will be able to win a couple of MB's.
    – StBlade
    Nov 4, 2013 at 6:54
  • I realized that I forgot to disable hibernation (I have 32GB RAM). For some reason it only cleared up about 6GB though... :/
    – Sponge Bob
    Nov 4, 2013 at 7:25
  • @FiascoLabs Yeah, and that makes me mad. Debian with Gnome only takes about 5GB and I have seriously been considering switching.
    – Sponge Bob
    Nov 4, 2013 at 7:26
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    You shouldn't worry about the size of WinSXS most tools report the incorrect size of it anyways. If all you are doing is Properties on the Windows folder its not reporting the correct size of this folder anyways.
    – Ramhound
    Nov 4, 2013 at 12:27

2 Answers 2

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Windows 8.1 gives allows you to forcibly remove all previous versions of uninstalled components, even ones that haven’t been around for more than 30 days. These commands must be run in an elevated Command Prompt — in other words, start the Command Prompt window as Administrator. For example, the following command will uninstall all previous versions of components without the scheduled task’s 30-day grace period:

DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

The following command will remove files needed for uninstallation of service packs. You won’t be able to uninstall any currently installed service packs after running this command:

DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded

The following command will remove all old versions of every component. You won’t be able to uninstall any currently installed service packs or updates after this completes:

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

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-winsxs-folder-on-windows-7-or-8/

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Try opening the search panel --> type in Task Scheduler --> on the left go into Microsoft folder --> then Windows folder and search for --> Servicing folder , click on it --> now in the mid of the page a "start new component cleanup" will show up. Right click it and select Run, then let the magic work.

It worked for me, 6-7 GB.

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