3
  1. My C: drive has less than 1 GB free.

C drive before so-called 'clean-up'

  1. I want to recover some of it so I run [Disk Cleanup] on it, then click [Clean up system files] and authorize it. It takes minutes to finally show a list of things I can delete, and that list includes almost 2 GB of Windows Update ("Cleanup") files.

supposed options for Disk Cleanup of system files

  1. I press [OK] and it takes minutes.

so-called 'clean-up' in progress

  1. ...before showing me that is has freed up: no space! (similar to but worse than in this situation: Disk Cleanup, won't delete?)

    In fact I have less space!!!

C drive after so-called clean-up

  1. I try the same thing again and get the same results.
  2. I try restarting my computer and see the same amount of space free (no extra space was freed during the reboot following the so-called 'clean-up'.
  3. I try again after the reboot and get the same results.

  4. I eventually go through a Windows Update cycle (notification, restart of computer and application of updates), and try the disk cleanup again and get the same results right down to the exact size of the Windows Update space it says it can free up (which is suspicious because I would expect it to be higher, reflecting there being an extra update cycle's files).

  5. (These steps done a few days later, due to commenter advice)

    • I increase the size of the Windows OS partition so that there is over 5 GB free. Space free after this point: 5.14 GB.
    • I do another admin account system level disk cleanup (which offers to free up 2.34 GB of Windows update files and another several hundred MB of other files). Space free after this point: 5.25 GB.
    • I do a restart. Space free after this point: 4.97 GB.
    • I do another admin account system level disk cleanup (which offers to free up 2.34 GB of Windows update files but not the several hundred MB of other files). Space free after this point: 4.86 GB.
    • I do a restart. Space free after this point: 5.14 GB.
    • I do another admin account system level disk cleanup (which offers to free up 2.34 GB of Windows update files and several hundred MB of other files (this time I notice it is 574 MB of error reporting files)). Space free after this point: 5.20 GB.
    • I do a restart. Space free after this point: 5.23 GB.
    • I check on what a system level disk cleanup offers to free up this time (but don't see any point in actually going through a 4th time, especially since each iteration takes 10-15 minutes), and it's 2.34 GB yet again.

What is going on? Why is it lying to me or failing? How can I get these files deleted?

Note: I don't think this should matter, but the C: drive is a partition on an SSD.

Note: Similar to this question, but not the same because in that case the user was only offered the option to delete the Windows Update files once, not made to jump through the same hoops 7 times (and counting): Windows 7 Disk Cleanup deleted 30GB of temp files but only recovered 10GB of disk space?

A.M.
  • 997
  • 5
  • 16
  • 24
  • Part of the problem is if you don't reboot: the actual cleanup may happen only then, not when you're running disk-cleanup. – Thomas Dickey Apr 07 '18 at 22:06
  • The drive space is no different (or certainly with nothing near the amount of new free space it was supposed to have). Question edited to reflect that (though since Disk Cleanup offers to delete the same thing over and over you can tell something is wrong even before rebooting. It doesn't offer me up the same things for deletion when it's working properly). – A.M. Apr 07 '18 at 22:17
  • I have bad news for you. The tool is misreporting the amount of space it can remove – Ramhound Apr 08 '18 at 00:13
  • 2
    @Ramhound It never has before. Care to explain why it would be now? (and maybe how to get it reporting correctly again?) – A.M. Apr 08 '18 at 01:24
  • In order to remove the updates being detected you would do more harm then good. You should identify different files to remove – Ramhound Apr 08 '18 at 01:39
  • For some updates, Windows waits a while before it will let you delete Windows.old - 10 or 30 days, and possibly other values. See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update-winpc/when-does-windowsold-disappear/d6db938e-c50d-4f44-a88b-31cad3a689c5 As @Ramhound states, removing this manually can cause serious OS issues. Also, space calculation is erroneous, including links that may make it seem more space will be freed than exists on an entire disk. – DrMoishe Pippik Apr 08 '18 at 05:09
  • 1
    use TreeSizeFree to analyze the usage and delete other temp files. if you have a few GB free space, try to run disk cleanup again. – magicandre1981 Apr 08 '18 at 16:18
  • @Moab Please see Step 6. ;) – A.M. Apr 08 '18 at 17:24
  • I would run a chkdsk on the drive then. – Moab Apr 08 '18 at 19:02
  • again, do what I told you. cleanup needs space itself fr temp files and log files. analyze the usage, clean up other data, move some data to a backup drive. after you have 3-4GB space again, do the cleanup and reboot. In Win7, the cleanup is done during reboot. if this fails, share the folder C:\Windows\logs\CBS (copy the folder to desktop, zip the folder and share the zip) – magicandre1981 Apr 09 '18 at 15:20
  • @magicandre1981 I tried giving the Windows bloat drive more space as you suggested (and as I remember used to be suggested for doing defrags on regular HDDs), but it did not work. I have added all the details under Step 9 in the question. – A.M. Apr 15 '18 at 15:11
  • @magicandre1981 How do people usually share files for a SE question? My DeepClean.log file, by the way, contains a bunch of error messages like "Failed to get next element [...] CBS_E_MANIFEST_INVALID_ITEM]", "Warning: Unrecognized packageExtended attribute.", "Failed finalizing changes [...] ERROR_NOT_FOUND]", "Failed finalizing transaction [...] ERROR_NOT_FOUND]", "Failed removing superseded packages [...] ERROR_NOT_FOUND]", and "PerformDeepClean failed. [...] ERROR_NOT_FOUND]". – A.M. Apr 15 '18 at 16:01
  • copy the complete folder C:\windows\logs\cbs to desktop, zip the folder and now upload the zip to Onedrive/dropbox and post a share link here. – magicandre1981 Apr 15 '18 at 17:47
  • without the logs I can't help you. – magicandre1981 Apr 21 '18 at 07:31
  • @magicandre1981 Silly question maybe: Is there any security risk to making those files public? I zipped a copy, but hesitated to upload since the files are way too big to review manually. They seem pretty formulaic, but still... :/ – A.M. Apr 30 '18 at 13:34
  • no the logs don't contain private data – magicandre1981 Apr 30 '18 at 13:35
  • @Shiv - If you have your own question you should ask a question. I don't provide assistance in the comment section. This question is almost 2 years old. – Ramhound Mar 10 '20 at 00:21
  • @Ramhound I think the comment is relevant as the Disk Cleanup tool has very poor error reporting to end user. It just fails without informing the user what went wrong. My case is indistinguishable via the Disk Cleanup UI from the OP. – Shiv Mar 10 '20 at 02:22
  • @Shiv - Sounds like you have a question, although what that question is, isn’t clear – Ramhound Mar 10 '20 at 03:36
  • @Ramhound my question is how do you definitively tell why the Windows Update cleanup step fails? The steps here are a whole bunch of guesswork but nothing authoritive. No place to check logs for error messages. We know for a fact the tool result and the amount of space it says it can recover are not lining up. Surely there is some basic way we can tell what it is dying on? – Shiv Mar 10 '20 at 11:33
  • And there are only two answers to my question. Either the tool is poorly written and doesn't provide such information, or it does in some form X. The latter would absolutely answer the OP question would it not? – Shiv Mar 10 '20 at 11:35

0 Answers0