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Remove Old Windows Updates


Larry365

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Wow - neat stuff. I'll give this a +1 and meanwhile look into a winapp2.ini entry for it.

 

Edit: Looks like it's stuff in the winsxs folder after some cursory research, not really sure I'm comfortable messing with that. I'd say stick to using cleanmgr for now.

Edited by Winapp2.ini
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it's a pity cleanmgr doesn't let you expand the entry for Windows Update Clean-up to see what it actually will do to what files.

 

+1 if CC is able to do this.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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Larry, welcome to the forum. That is a great idea, if someone can figure out how to make it work. Another +1 from me. Have you ever tried using that option? Let me share my experience with you and everyone else.

 

I bought this laptop in June, went through the first round of Windows updates, and ended up with about 55 updates in total. After several weeks, I discovered that feature and decided to try it. Windows informed me that I would gain back 2.8GB in disk space, so I thought why not? After the first 15 seconds or so, I heard my laptop's fan begin to spin up. And it just kept going faster and faster, until it was screaming, going faster than I ever heard before. I had the Speedfan utility running in system tray, and when I brought it up, I found my processors(4) running between 60 to 80 percent constantly. And their temperature was 75 to 80 degrees C - very hot in my opinion. And it was at that point I realized there was no going back. There is no way to stop the process, no way to pause or cancel it*. So I only hoped that it would be brief. WRONG! About two hours later, I finally heard the fan slow down. Then Windows went through several restarts and it was over. Later I visited AMD's website and found the absolute max for my processor is 95 degrees C, beyond that "your processor may be permanently damaged".

 

So Windows 8 came very close to killing my 3 week old machine with that wonderful little feature. It probably shortened it's life to some degree. In retrospect, I should have just lived with the extra 2.8GB on my drive.

 

*You might try stopping it via Task Manger - but I don't even want to think about the chaos you would create in the filesystem; you'd probably end up re-installing Windows by doing so.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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I tried the option this afternoon. Fully patched win7 x64 (less bing desktop / bar / mse, assorted other ms junk) and it removed 4.28Gb (edit: From my 60gb ssd which was nice!)

 

 

@Derek: It's now an option on windows 7 as of this patch tues. - I had no problems running it :( I'd imagine if you'd've just killed cleanmgr it'd've just stopped deleting stuff - if you were lucky.

 

OT: hooray for those double contractions

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I'd imagine if you'd've just killed cleanmgr it'd've just stopped deleting stuff - if you were lucky.

 

OT: hooray for those double contractions

 

But that's my problem, Winapp2. When it comes to computers, I have no luck at all. :(

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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Info on the update here

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2852386/en-us

 

More info (with graphics!)

 

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/09/save-lots-disk-space-microsofts-new-windows-update-cleanup-tool/

 

(this update is integrated into Windows 8.1)

 

Support contact

https://support.ccleaner.com/s/contact-form?language=en_US&form=general

or

support@ccleaner.com

 

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It's just got rid of 6GB for me on Win 7 64bit :)

 

(*note to self...)

 

always remember to check the status of my laptop battery before doing something like this.

 

It would have avoided the situation where when you rebooted to finish the cleanup, the laptop died.

 

It would have avoided the troubleshooting and hairpulling until you tried plugging in power lead.

 

It would have avoided then being stuck on ''configuring'' 35%

 

It would have avoided needing to boot into safe mode so Windows could finish job without getting 'stressed' :lol:

 

However job done, now have 6GB more.

 

Going for a lie down!!

 

Support contact

https://support.ccleaner.com/s/contact-form?language=en_US&form=general

or

support@ccleaner.com

 

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This could be an exciting experience :o

I mean that in the worst possible way :)

 

I think I read an article last year that Windows 7 updates prior to SP1 would remain resident in WinSXS even though they were not needed,

but there was a manual technique (possibly involving some tool) of removing them.

 

I obtained the impression that removing subsequent updates would be at my own risk.

Will using this new option in "Windows Cleanup" similarly be at my own risk ?

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Just tried it on my Win7 x64 laptop. Said there was 6.31GB to remove, so I did. I ran Cleanup again and there was still 2.04GB left. I ran it a 2nd time but the 2.04GB remains!?! :wacko:

 

Maybe by stating it removes "old" updates, the "new" updates are intentionally left... until they become "old" :P

Win10 Pro x64 Desktop (Speccy) - Win10 Pro x64 Laptop (Speccy)

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I was experimenting with this yesterday and was gonna post a thread on it. I think the winsxs reference is a dud (I found similar comment that it was emptying that folder), as running that cleanup option cleared 3Gb of files but my winsxs folder was unchanged (I did try to track the changes but didn't realise the files were removed during a restart so I failed in that regard)

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I think it's definitely winsxs related, i looked into it before I ran it..

 

 

#files in C:\Windows\winSXS before running: 77,016

 

#files after: 64,612

But there certainly wasn't 3gb of files gone from my winsxs folder

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Beware messing with the Winsxs folder. There are lot of NTFS hardlinks or whatever they are called there (NTFS symbolic links). It's difficult to report the real size.

 

As for some people saying getting rid of a few Gigabytes isn't particularly noticeable, it is for me, specially when doing a patition backup.

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always remember to check the status of my laptop battery before doing something like this.

 

It would have avoided the situation where when you rebooted to finish the cleanup, the laptop died.

 

It would have avoided the troubleshooting and hairpulling until you tried plugging in power lead.

 

It would have avoided then being stuck on ''configuring'' 35%

 

It would have avoided needing to boot into safe mode so Windows could finish job without getting 'stressed' :lol:

 

However job done, now have 6GB more.

 

If you don't mind me asking, Hazelnut, just how long did it take to remove the 6GB? That's just over twice the amount I had. Did it take four hours or so? I noticed your battery nearly let you down at the end.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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Do you think this feature will be added anytime soon? I hope they add it into the next version.

 

It depends on which version of Windows you have Jimmy. It's always been a part of the cleanup options in Win8 and Win8.1, and it's just been added to Win7.

You might have missed it, Hazelnut had it in her first post. http://support.micro...b/2852386/en-us

 

If you have Vista or XP, I don't know what to tell you, other than the fact that support for XP is ending in April, so I wouldn't expect Microsoft to be adding much of anything between now and then.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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