The WinSxS directory is a huge folder, and it keeps growing bigger day by day storing necessary and unnecessary files. It contains all the Windows system components and grabs a massive disk space in your system. This space consumption keeps building up because sometimes a user might not have enough permission, even with the administrator’s account that he/ she can delete them.
As per Microsoft, the old files and links of some installations and updates are just kept if in case the user might want them back in the future. And within the time, the old files and links are automatically removed. But if that doesn’t happen in your case, you might need to do it manually with the methods explained below:
Methods to reduce the size of the WinSxS Directory and Free Up Disk Space on Windows Server
When the WinSxS directory is packed massively, it might slow down the speed of your virtual machine and cause some fundamental issues in your way while using it. The methods explained below will help you to quickly reduce the size of WinSxS and create some free disk space.
METHOD 1: Run disk cleanup
- Open the File Explorer from the desktop or through the Windows search bar.
- From the left pane of options, click on ‘This PC.’
- Now from the newly appeared options, locate ‘Local Disk (C:/),’ right-click on it and select ‘Properties.’
- On the Properties window, go to the General tab and click on the icon ‘Disk Clean up.’ It will now calculate the disk space consumed on your system. The process might take a few seconds or minutes; hence be patient and do not leave the page.
- Once the calculation process is done, a new window will appear, from where you can select files that you want to delete. Select the files and click on OK.
- Now to confirm the permanent deletion, click on ‘Delete files.’ Wait for a while until the cleanup utility removes some unnecessary files.
Once done, you can check the ‘File Explorer’ again to figure out how much Disk space is cleared.