WinSxS folder is very big in size and takes up much space of your computer hard disk. Follow the steps in this tutorial to conduct the WinSxS folder cleanup on Windows 10/8/7 and reduce the size of WinSxS folder to save space for Windows 10/8/7. To better manage your computer hard drive, MiniTool partition manager is helpful to allow you resize/extend/shrink partition and more.
How to do a WinSxS folder cleanup on Windows 10/8/7 to reduce the size of WinSxS folder to save more disk space on computer?
What Is WinSxS?
WinSxS, short for Windows Side By Side, is a folder located at C:\Windows\WinSxS in Windows 10/8/7. WinSxS folder stores different copies of DLL and system files, for instance, all installed Windows updates incl. those old versions of system components, files needed for Windows installation, backups and updates to those files. WinSxS folder also contains files of uninstalled, disabled Windows components.
Therefore, WinSxS folder general takes up several gigabytes of disk space and eats up more space each time you perform the Windows Update. If WinSxS folder becomes extremely large, your computer may run slower.
You can’t directly delete WinSxS folder to free up disk space because some of the WinSxS files are important for Windows to run and update.
However, you do have some feasible ways to perform the WinSxS folder cleanup on Windows 10/8/7 to reduce the size of WinSxS folder, so as to free up more disk space for your computer hard drive.
Check below how to clean up WinSxS folder on Windows 10/8/7 with Disk Cleanup tool and Command Prompt.
How to Do WinSxS Folder Cleanup Windows 10/8/7 with Disk Cleanup
You can use Windows built-in tool – Disk Cleanup – to safely clean up old Windows updates folders from WinSxS folder.
Step 1. You can click Start or the Search Box at the toolbar, and type disk cleanup. Select the best match result Disk Cleanup desktop app from the list to open Windows Disk Cleanup tool.
Step 2. Select the drive you want to clean up.
Step 3. Next click Clean up system files button, and tick Windows Update Cleanup option. Click OK to start to free up more disk space by cleaning up system files in WinSxS folder.
Tip: If you don’t see the Windows Update Cleanup option, it means there aren’t any WinSxS folder files that can be safely deleted.
How to Reduce the Size of WinSxS Folder on Windows 10/8/7 with DISM Command
You can also use Windows built-in command-line tool – DISM – to clean up and delete unneeded files in WinSxS folder to save disk space.
Step 1. You can click Start and type command prompt. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator to open and run Windows Command Prompt as Administrator.
Step 2. Copy and paste this command line in Command Prompt window and hit Enter.
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
Step 3. After the DISM tool finishes analyzing the WinSxS folder, you can see the details of WinSxS folder components, along with a recommendation to clean up WinXSxS folder or not.
Step 4. Type the following command lines to perform WinSxS folder cleanup Windows 10/8/7.
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup (this command will delete all previous versions of updated components)
DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded (this command helps remove files needed for uninstallation of service packs. It won’t uninstall any currently installed service packs)
DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase (this command removes all old versions of every component)
By using these two ways, you can clean WinSxS folder Windows 10/8/7 to reduce the size of WinSxS folder to save more disk space on your computer.
Free up More Disk Space with MiniTool Partition Wizard
If you want to free up more disk space on your Windows 10/8/7 computer, you can use the Space Analyzer function of MiniTool Partition Wizard.
MiniTool Partition Wizard is a 100% clean and free partition manager compatible with Windows 10/8/7. You can use this free tool to analyze disk space and delete unnecessary large files and folders to release more free space.
You can also use this software to resize/extend/shrink partition in Windows 10/8/7 without data loss. It also allows you to merge/split/create/delete/copy/format/wipe partition, convert/check/copy/wipe disk and more.
Download MiniTool Partition Wizard on Windows 10/8/7 PC and follow the steps below to analyze disk space and deleted unnecessary large files.
Step 1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard and click Space Analyzer function in the toolbar.
Step 2. Select a drive or partition and click Scan button to analyze the disk space usage.
Step 3. Browse from the scan result to check all files in computer hard disk. You can right-click certain files or folders to choose Delete (to Recycle Bin) or Delete (Permanently) to delete those unneeded large files to free up more space.
You can choose to view the files and folders in computer by Tree View, File View, Folder View. You can also click Size column to view the files and folders with an ascending or descending order in size to quickly which files or folders occupy the most space of your computer hard disk.
The End
By using the two ways in this post, hope you can now clean up WinSxS folder on Windows 10/8/7 to reduce the size of WinSxS folder to save space on Windows 10/8/7. MiniTool Partition Wizard also helps you better manage your computer hard disk space with its Space Analyzer function.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Alisa is a professional English editor with 4-year experience. She loves writing and focuses on sharing detailed solutions and thoughts for computer problems, data recovery & backup, digital gadgets, tech news, etc. Through her articles, users can always easily get related problems solved and find what they want. In spare time, she likes basketball, badminton, tennis, cycling, running, and singing. She is very funny and energetic in life, and always brings friends lots of laughs.
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