Not so long ago, most home PCs were equipped with hard drives, the volumes of which were extremely far from epic. In particular, it was often possible to meet a car with a 30 GB hard drive, or even less.
Of course, at that time the struggle was going on for almost every free megabyte on the hard drive. Years passed, the size of data carriers gradually grew. Today, it is no longer a rarity for a home PC with one or two terabytes on board, and therefore it almost does not bother users about the lack of free space.
WinSxS folder
However, this does not apply to all users. For example, WinSxS cleaning is haunting some of them. What is this abbreviation? This is the name of the system folder, whose sizes often cause discussions in computer forums.
Advanced users are haunted by the fact that this malicious directory has the unpleasant property of constantly growing. And it does this even if you do not install any programs on your computer!
It happens that the size of this “miracle folder” exceeds several tens of GB. In this case, inexperienced users begin to reinstall the system, sinning on proliferating viruses, and the correct cleaning of WinSxS again begins to completely absorb the minds of their more well-read colleagues.
What is it for?
Here you should stop and explain the purpose of the directory, which is located at the following address: C: \ Windows \ winsxs. In this service folder, the Windows operating systems store old versions of some of their files, which, if necessary, can be quickly restored from nonexistence.
Why is it constantly increasing?
Many inexperienced users have the persistent misconception that this folder begins to grab huge chunks of free disk space immediately after installing the system itself. This is far from the case.
To begin with, the size specified in the catalog properties does not have much in common with the real state of affairs. Keep in mind that many of the files that are supposedly located in this directory are actually located in other places. Their volume is taken into account only because of "hard" links in Explorer.
We’ll immediately warn especially enterprising citizens: do not turn on the mode of displaying hidden files, and then manually delete all contents from the folder. Yes, you really guess a fraction of the free space, but only your joy will be very short-lived. The system will quickly respond to such bullying, and therefore very soon all work on the computer will be overshadowed by constant crashes and crashes to the blue screen.
There are several safe ways in which WinSxS cleanup can be performed completely without consequences. In this article we will consider them.
Windows 7
Until recently, Microsoft OS users could not even imagine that many important functions would finally be implemented directly into the system. Everything changed after the appearance of the set of "patches" SP1 on the "seven".
More recently, on October 8, 2013, Microsoft pleased its users with the KB2852386 update, which added the ability to properly clean this directory to the system. If you have automatic download and update installation enabled, then it is probably on your system.
We start the cleaning procedure
Even the most inexperienced user can handle this. First, open the "My Computer" window. Then you need to right-click on the system drive, select the "Properties" item in the context menu that appears, and then go to the "General" tab in the dialog box that appears.
Below is the "Disk Cleanup" button, which you should click. A utility window will start up, which will take some time to analyze the amount of disk space that can be freed up after all operations are completed. Another dialog box will open to familiarize you with the results of these analyzes.
You should be interested in the “Clear system files” button, which is located just below the list of all system resources that can be cleared. Click on it, confirm your actions by clicking on “OK” in the UAC window that appears.
The analysis starts again, after which another window appears again. In it, you can finally click on the "OK" button, after which WinSxS cleaning will be completed.
Another way
There is another method, during which it will be necessary to use a command line emulator launched as administrator. How to do it?
First, click on the "Start" button, look for the "Search" item in the menu that opens. In this field, type the word CMD, and then in the right part of the working window find the file of the same name. Click RMB on it, and then select "Run as administrator" in the context menu that appears.
What to do next?
A window of a terminal launched with elevated privileges will open. Copy and paste the cleanmgr command there, press the Enter key. The program for cleaning the WinSxS folder appears again, in the drop-down list of which you need to select the system drive, and then click on the "OK" button. After that, carry out the same operation that was described in the first cleaning method.
General recommendations
We recommend that you clear all the checkboxes, except for the "Clean Windows Updates" item. Once again, check everything, and then click on the "OK" button. After that, the WinSxS folder will be cleared. Cleaning up Windows 7 suggests that after completing this step, you must send the system a reboot.
After that, you can again get into “My Computer” and evaluate how much free space is available. As we have already said, in especially neglected cases this difference can be very, very significant.
About the benefits of Windows 8 / 8.1, or Cleaning Automation
Despite all the criticism that hit the G8 immediately after its release, it had important advantages initially. So, the ability to delete old updates was always there, so users of new Microsoft systems do not need to clear the WinSxS folder. Windows 8 is fully automated in this regard, so you don’t even have to configure anything.
In the "Seven" something similar to set up is also quite real. In order for you to have an automatic cleaning of the WinSxS folder, Windows 7 needs to be run from under the administrator account. In addition, you will need to enter the elevated command-line terminal emulator.
We have already described this technology in detail above. When you see the terminal window, you should copy the following line into it: schtasks / Create / TN CleanupWinSxS / RL Highest / SC monthly / TR "cleanmgr / sagerun: 88". After that, you can press Enter.
From now on, in the first days of each month, the folder will be automatically cleaned from any garbage. If you want to adjust the execution time, click on the "Start" button, find the "Run" field there, and then enter the taskschd.msc command there.
The "Windows Task Scheduler" opens, in which you can adjust all the necessary indicators for deleting old files from WinSxS. Cleaning up Windows 8 / 8.1 is not needed! Once again, we remind you that irrelevant updates are automatically deleted from there.
So how justified is this purification?
Again, it is generally accepted that any cleaning of the hard disk is an operation that is already useful by definition. This is far from the case. This is especially true for deleting files from the WinSxS folder. Cleaning up Windows 7 for beginners often ends up with the fact that their system completely loses the last vestiges of stability, after which it becomes decidedly impossible to do something on the computer.
We have already said that old versions of many files are stored in this directory. Which specifically? Everything is simple. The system “stores” there old updates and system files that were changed as a result of their installation.
It is easy to assume that in the case when a patch turns out to be problematic, you can easily roll back the system to the state when everything was still working fine. If the storage of these files turns out to be completely cleaned up, this will not work. Accordingly, you either have to wait for an official decision from Microsoft, or reinstall the system.
In both cases, you are wasting your time and money. Considering that terabytes of information can be stored on modern hard drives, such a fierce struggle for crumbs of free space loses its meaning.
Before deleting files from WinSxS (cleaning Windows 2008 and other server systems is even more responsible) make sure twice and thrice that all components of the system work perfectly, there are no failures and crashes caused by “crooked” patches and updates.
In particular, relatively recently, users of even completely legal Microsoft systems have come across the fact that the new update made it impossible to launch almost all the applications that were installed on your computer.
Even if you have finally decided on the need for cleaning, be sure to wait at least a couple of weeks after the last release of Microsoft patches. In this case, you will at least have confidence in the normal operation of the system.