Windows 11 filling hard drives

[OVERKILL]

Another fun Microsoft experience. Two HP computers, at completely separate locations within the last 48hrs, both of which don't have much on them, and both have full hard drives. Computers have 256GB SSD's.

Disk Cleanup frees up next to nothing.

However, going into System -> Storage is revealing.

System files on the one are taking up 167GB of space!!!!! ABSURD!

Must be some of that quality AI coding Microsoft has been doing. Nothing but quality.

 

[bdcardinal]

This is why I still ride dirty with W10. That and I have to have my taskbar on the left side of my left monitor and apparently W11 can't do that natively.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Fortunately 512GB NVMEs are pretty cheap. $60?

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

If they built a computer with all of the memory created in the history of the world inside, Microsoft would build an operating system that wouldn't run on it.

 

[OVERKILL]

Fortunately 512GB NVMEs are pretty cheap. $60?

~$120-ish CDN for a WD Black, but that's not the point, the OS is consuming 70% of the storage space for no apparent reason. On my desktop the same checks shows 80GB of space used, also Windows 11, which is also gross, but shows there's no excuse for this.

 

[goblin]

Jam Software's Treesize Free version is your friend. I don't think any Windows PC should be used without it, and Microsoft should've made it part of Windows.

Do a scan (open it as admin so it can scan the system files), see what's eating the most.

If you're in a corporate environment, this is what usually wins the big prizes:

- If those are dev machines with WSL installed - look no further. WSL will grab half the disk for the linux virtual disk and will never release the space unless you run an optimization in diskpart.

- Outlook in cached mode: The OST file will hit 49gb before complaining, then the user will be in a rush and the admin will add the registry to allow it to go to 100gb. Plus all the corrupted all OST files that will have been just renamed, not deleted, and still sitting there.

The above two will be in C:\Users\Username

- Windows Search index. Deletable in Control Panel. It rebuilds to a smaller one.

- MS Teams cache can easily go several gigs.

- User's Downloads folder that was never cleaned.

- Another can of worms if the machines are SCCM managed and the CCM folders are not flushed.

- Google Chrome caches. Can easily hit 6-7-8Gb.

- If Matlab is installed - sky is the limit. The installation files are 20gb. Then it goes up from there.

- For System files - restore points, downloaded packages - the built in Disk Cleaner can help a lot, but run as admin.

One way or the other - Treesize is your friend. The free version is enough for on the spot checks. The paid version adds daily scans and reports on what has increased or decreased. Great, absolutely great stuff.

 

[JustinH]

The techs at my job are syncing onedrive files to the local profiles and dealing with full drives also.

 

[dubber09]

There is at least a couple of good YT videos on how to clean up and what to adjust to prevent W11 from ballooning.

 

[OVERKILL]

The techs at my job are syncing onedrive files to the local profiles and dealing with full drives also.

Yeah, these are both Office365 connected systems, but the user profiles aren't huge, rather, it's Windows inexplicably chewing up hard drive space for the hell of it. Never had this problem with 10.

 

[OVERKILL]

Jam Software's Treesize Free version is your friend. I don't think any Windows PC should be used without it, and Microsoft should've made it part of Windows.

Do a scan (open it as admin so it can scan the system files), see what's eating the most.

If you're in a corporate environment, this is what usually wins the big prizes:

- If those are dev machines with WSL installed - look no further. WSL will grab half the disk for the linux virtual disk and will never release the space unless you run an optimization in diskpart.

- Outlook in cached mode: The OST file will hit 49gb before complaining, then the user will be in a rush and the admin will add the registry to allow it to go to 100gb. Plus all the corrupted all OST files that will have been just renamed, not deleted, and still sitting there.

The above two will be in C:\Users\Username

- Windows Search index. Deletable in Control Panel. It rebuilds to a smaller one.

- MS Teams cache can easily go several gigs.

- User's Downloads folder that was never cleaned.

- Another can of worms if the machines are SCCM managed and the CCM folders are not flushed.

- Google Chrome caches. Can easily hit 6-7-8Gb.

- If Matlab is installed - sky is the limit. The installation files are 20gb. Then it goes up from there.

- For System files - restore points, downloaded packages - the built in Disk Cleaner can help a lot, but run as admin.

One way or the other - Treesize is your friend. The free version is enough for on the spot checks. The paid version adds daily scans and reports on what has increased or decreased. Great, absolutely great stuff.

It's nothing to do with the user accounts, they are 8GB and 12GB respectively. No WSL, these are basic front-end systems used with Office365. This problem isn't happening on the Windows 10 computers.

Of course on the one, running out of space screwed up things on the filesystem and dism and sfc were required after the drive was cloned onto a larger one.

On the first system, the WinSxS folder was 40GB, but it's not huge on the 2nd one.

I've previously used JDiskReport, never tried Treesize, but the space all seemed to be used by:
Windows -> ServiceProfiles -> LocalService

This has a Temp folder which was full of large (4GB) .dmp files

What's wild is that Disk Cleanup doesn't remove these, nor does Microsoft's "Storage Sense".

Removing the .dmp files shrunk the Windows folder to a more typical 34GB.

 

[OVERKILL]

There is at least a couple of good YT videos on how to clean up and what to adjust to prevent W11 from ballooning.

I know how to clean it up, been around computers for a few minutes at least I'm just complaining about Windows 11 and Microsoft's devolution into "Microslop" lol.

There's no preventing this really, as on the one system, the files in question aren't picked-up by Storage Sense or Disk Cleanup, even though they are in a temp folder. This immediately makes it an issue beyond the capabilities of the end user.

Windows is supposed to keep the WinSxS folder "optimized" but, well...

 

[ka9mnx]

There is at least a couple of good YT videos on how to clean up and what to adjust to prevent W11 from ballooning.

Yea but this shouldn't be necessary for the user in a proper OS.

 

[Popsy]

This is why I still ride dirty with W10. That and I have to have my taskbar on the left side of my left monitor and apparently W11 can't do that natively.

I can change that on mine, left/middle/right. Not sure if that depends on the windows version?

 

[midnightlaundry]

Windirstat gives you a visual of what's on the Drive. Hovering the Mouse shows you where the File is so you can dump it..

https://windirstat.net/

 

[SC Maintenance]

Possibly they have reimplemented 386Spart. On a SSD I bet its lightning fast!

 

[blain450]

This is why I still ride dirty with W10. That and I have to have my taskbar on the left side of my left monitor and apparently W11 can't do that natively.

I signed into my PCs with a freshly minted Microsoft account, to enroll them for extended updates.
After they were confirmed enrolled, I signed back into them using their local accounts. I've read there may be a 60 day re-authentication requirement (for Windows 10, 365 is different), but I haven't experienced that yet.
Loading and using Zorin OS 18 on a spare PC is on my To-Do list. But having the extended updates has moved the Zorin project lower on my priority list.

 

[Hermann]

Just checked my 128g SSD running Windows 11. Still has 71.8g remaining. 1+ years old.

 

[Pew]

I've stopped cloning because of all the hidden issues that come with cloning later. What's failing so much that it's causing all those dump logs?

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Just checked and I am at 74GB used/163GB free

But I can't get my wife's photos off the cloud on win 11 PC. It just sits there calculating ...

 

[OVERKILL]

I've stopped cloning because of all the hidden issues that come with cloning later. What's failing so much that it's causing all those dump logs?

I've never had any issues with cloning with my current method, which isn't copy the disk, but backing it up using an Acronis bootable USB to a portable SSD in a USB enclosure, then restoring it onto the new one. The keeps the volume serial #, which is important for some specific types of software. You have to then:

Disable WindowsRE:
reagentc /disable

diskpart
-> delete recovery partition
-> resize primary partition, leaving enough space for recovery at the end of the drive
-> recreate recovery partition (steps are available online, it needs special flags)

Enable WindowsRE:
reagentc /enable