What is the winsxs folder? The "winsxs" folder - what is it for and how to clean it? What does it contain
The disk on which the operating system is located must have enough free space for it to function well. The trend is to abandon hard drives and install small-volume solid-state drives, specifically for the operating system. SSD drives cost a lot, and after installing Windows and a couple of programs on them, space may come to an end. In such a situation, the user may stumble upon the WinSxS folder, which is located in the Windows directory. Its size can vary from a couple to tens of gigabytes. The question arises, is it possible to remove WinSxS and all its contents from the computer, and how to do this? In this article we will try to figure this out and provide detailed instructions.
WinSxS: what is this folder and why is it needed
Before you delete one of the folders that is located in the Windows directory, you need to understand its purpose. The WinSxS folder is present in any version of the operating system above Windows 7. Its task is to store backup files of the operating system. Every time Windows is updated, backup recovery files are saved to the WinSxS folder.
If Windows is not reinstalled on the computer for several years, the WinSxS folder can seriously “grow” in size. Each operating system update adds several hundred megabytes of files to the folder. After just a couple of months of running Windows, the size of WinSxS begins to exceed a gigabyte, and after a year it can reach 5 gigabytes or more, depending on the operating system update frequency.
The answer to the question “Is it possible to remove WinSxS?” pretty simple. Files stored inside this folder should be deleted if the Windows operating system is stable after the update is installed. These files in Windows 10 may be needed not only to “roll back” to the version of Windows before the update, but also for .
Before you begin the process of deleting the contents of the WinSxS folder, you should be warned that you can only erase some data, and not the entire folder. That is why, to remove unnecessary information from WinSxS, you need to use special Windows tools, which differ depending on the versions of the operating system.
Important: Under no circumstances should you try to delete the entire WinSxS folder without first obtaining permission to change it from TrustedInstaller. If, when Windows boots, it does not detect the WinSxS folder on the computer, the operating system risks not working.
On the Windows 10 operating system, deleting files from the WinSxS folder should be done as carefully as possible, since, as noted above, some of them may be needed to reset the system to its original state. Based on this, you should determine which files can be deleted from WinSxS, and which ones are best left alone. In Windows 10, there is a special tool for these tasks that allows you to delete unnecessary backups from a folder, but not touch the system recovery files to their original state.
Cleaning WinSxS in Windows 10 is carried out as follows:
Note: on the Windows 10 operating system, it recommends cleaning WinSxS when the folder size approaches 10 gigabytes or exceeds this value. If a folder occupies 5 gigabytes or less, in some cases executing a command to clean it up may, on the contrary, lead to an increase in its size.
In terms of deleting files from the WinSxS folder, the Windows 8 operating system is the most user-friendly. It allows you to delete unnecessary recovery copies using the method described above for Windows 10, but it also provides a special program for cleaning the system disk.
To remove unnecessary files from the WinSxS folder in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, you must:
This method of deleting unnecessary backup files from the WinSxS folder is the most convenient, and you can perform it with any amount of unnecessary information to restore Windows and not worry that important elements will be deleted.
How to clear WinSxS in Windows 7
The Windows 7 operating system out of the box does not provide the ability to delete unnecessary information from the WinSxS folder. At the same time, it allows you to install a special program on your computer, identical to the one used to clear temporary files in Windows 8 by default. The application is installed automatically, but the user needs to give the appropriate command for this.
One of the most massive folders in Windows 7, which takes up significant disk space WITH, is the system directory "WinSxS". In addition, it has a tendency to constantly increase. Therefore, many users are tempted to clean out this directory in order to free up space on the hard drive. Let's see what data is stored in "WinSxS" and is it possible to clean this folder without negative consequences for the system.
"WinSxS" is a system directory, the contents of which in Windows 7 are located in the following path:
C:\Windows\WinSxS
The named directory stores versions of all updates for various Windows components, and these updates are constantly accumulated, which leads to a regular increase in its size. For various system failures using the contents "WinSxS" rollbacks are made to a stable state of the OS. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to delete or completely clear this directory, since at the slightest failure you risk ending up with a dead system. But you can clean some components in the specified directory, although Microsoft recommends doing this only as a last resort if you are critically short of disk space. Therefore, we recommend that before performing any procedures described below, make a backup copy of the OS and save it on a separate medium.
Installing update KB2852386
It should be noted that, unlike the Windows 8 operating system and later operating systems, the “seven” initially did not have a built-in tool for cleaning the folder "WinSxS", and using manual removal, as mentioned above, is unacceptable. But, fortunately, an update KB2852386 was later released, which contains a patch for the Cleanmgr utility and helps solve this problem. Therefore, first of all, you need to make sure that this update is installed on your PC or install it if it is missing.
- Click "Start". Come in "Control Panel".
- Click "System and safety".
- Go to "Windows Update".
- In the lower left part of the window that appears, click on the inscription "Installed updates".
- A window opens with a list of updates installed on the computer. We need to find the KB2852386 update in the section "Microsoft Windows" of this list.
- But the problem is that there can be a lot of items in the list, and therefore you risk spending a significant amount of time searching. To make the task easier, place the cursor in the search field located to the right of the address bar of the current window. Enter the following expression there:
After this, only the element with the above code should remain in the list. If you see it, then everything is in order, the necessary update is installed and you can immediately proceed to ways to clean the folder "WinSxS".
If the element is not displayed in the current window, this means that in order to achieve the goals set in this article, you should perform the update procedure.
- Return to "Update centre". This can be done quickly if you followed exactly the algorithm described above by clicking the arrow pointing to the left at the top of the current window to the left of the address bar.
- To make sure that your computer sees the required update, click on the inscription "Search for updates" on the left side of the window. This is especially important if you do not have auto-updates enabled.
- The system will search for updates that are not installed on your PC.
- After completing the procedure, click on the inscription "Important updates available".
- A list of important updates that are not installed on your PC will open. You can choose which of them to install by checking the checkboxes to the left of the names. Check the box next to the name "Update for Windows 7 (KB2852386)". Next click "OK".
- Back at the window "Update Center", click "Install updates".
- The installation process of the selected updates will begin.
- After it finishes, restart your PC. Now you will have the necessary tool to clean up your directory "WinSxS".
Method 1: "Command Line"
The procedure we need can be performed using "Command line", through which the Cleanmgr utility is launched.
- Click "Start". Click "All programs".
- Go to the folder "Standard".
- Find in the list "Command line". Right-click on the name ( RMB). Choose an option "Run as administrator".
- Activation in progress "Command line". Enter the following command:
Click Enter.
- A window opens asking you to select the disk to be cleaned. The default should be section C. Leave it if your operating system has a standard layout. If, for some reason, it is installed on another disk, then select it. Click "OK".
- After this, the utility estimates the amount of space that it can clear during the corresponding operation. This may take some time, so be patient.
- A list of system objects that need to be cleaned will open. Be sure to find a position among them "Cleaning Windows Updates"(or "Update Package Backup Files") and put a mark next to it. This position is responsible for cleaning the folder "WinSxS". Opposite the remaining items, place the checkboxes at your discretion. You can remove all other marks if you do not want to clean anything else, or mark those components where you also want to remove “garbage”. After that press "OK".
Attention! In the window "Disk Cleanup" paragraph "Cleaning Windows Updates" may be missing. This means that there are no elements in the “WinSxS” directory that could be deleted without negative consequences for the system.
- A dialog box will open asking if you really want to clear the selected components. Agree by clicking "Delete files".
- Next, the Cleanmgr utility will clean the folder "WinSxS" from unnecessary files and will then close automatically.
Method 2: Windows GUI
Not every user is comfortable running utilities via "Command line". Most users prefer to do this using the OS graphical interface. This is quite doable for the Cleanmgr tool as well. This method, of course, is more understandable for the average user, but, as you will see, it will take longer.
- Click "Start" and follow the inscription "Computer".
- In the window that opens "Conductor" in the list of hard drives, find the name of the partition where the current Windows OS is installed. In the vast majority of cases this is a disk C. Click on it RMB. Choose "Properties".
- In the window that appears, click "Disk Cleanup".
- The exact same procedure for assessing the cleared space that we saw when using the previous method will be launched.
- In the window that opens, do not pay attention to the list of elements to be cleaned, but click "Clean up system files".
- The freed up space on the drive will be re-evaluated, but this time taking into account system elements.
- After this, exactly the same window will open "Disk Cleanup" which we observed in Method 1. Next, you need to perform all the actions that were described in it, starting from point 7.
Method 3: Automatic cleaning of “WinSxS”
In Windows 8, it is possible to configure a folder cleaning schedule "WinSxS" through "Task Scheduler". Unfortunately, this option is not available in Windows 7. However, you can still schedule periodic cleaning through the same "Command line", although without flexible scheduling.
As you can see, in Windows 7 you can empty the folder "WinSxS" how through "Command line", and through the OS graphical interface. You can also schedule the periodic launch of this procedure by entering commands. But in all the cases listed above, the operation will be performed using the Cleanmgr utility, a special update for which, if it is not available on the PC, must be installed through the standard Windows update algorithm. It is very important for any user to remember: clean the folder "WinSxS" manually by deleting files or using third-party programs is strictly prohibited.
This directory usually irritates owners of PCs with the Windows operating system due to its volume and, moreover, only increasing over time. And most importantly, previously there was no sufficiently safe method to reduce the amount of disk space it occupied. Removing WinSxS caused Windows to malfunction or crash the OS.
Therefore, before taking any action, you need to carefully understand WinSxS: what kind of folder it is and whether it can be deleted.
Briefly about this folder
This directory contains OS backup files. Therefore, after each update procedure its size increases. It is located on C:\Windows\winsxs and is a system one. Thanks to it, you can uninstall updates and perform a system rollback if problems arise with Windows. This directory stores all data about the operating system, and if you delete it, the system will most likely no longer boot.
We've sorted out the issue of deletion, now let's move on to the problem of whether it is possible to safely empty the WinSxS folder in order to reduce its size and the amount of memory occupied on the computer's disk space.
Is it possible to clear the contents of WinSxS?
You can only delete certain files, and not everything in it. You will need to use Windows system utilities (the tools differ in different versions of the OS). Third-party cleaning applications do not have the ability to delete any information from this directory, since this directory is a system one.
Warning! If you manually remove the components contained in WinSxS, the consequences of the intervention are unpredictable.
The correct process for freeing disk memory
The Windows tool that you will need to use to properly delete some of the contents of the folder is called "DISM".
To launch this application follow these steps:
Doing this will not completely remove the WinSxS directory. Only outdated data will disappear, so you can assume that only a small amount of memory on your hard drive will be cleared. It depends on how long ago the OS was installed on the computer.
Process for Windows 10
The process of cleaning the WinSxS directory in Ten includes the following steps:
Important! The tenth OS provides for such a condition; only if the volume of the WinSxS directory is more than 10 GB, then it is advisable to clean it.
Process for Windows 8
Cleaning the WinSxS directory in Eight is especially easy. This can be done using a similar method indicated for the “Tenth” version of Windows, and this OS also has a special cleaning application.
The process of cleaning the WinSxS directory in Eight includes the following steps:
This method is the safest.
Process for Windows 7
In "Seven", the developers did not take care of the need to clean out the WinSxS directory, but you can install a special application on your PC, similar to the utility used in "Eight".
To install the application you must do the following:
By analogy with the algorithm of actions in Windows 8, you can clean the WinSxS folder.
Many users perceive it almost as a standard of “sickness” and a tendency to gradually become littered with unnecessary files. Unfortunately, there is some truth in such beliefs.
That is why the popularity of various kinds of optimization programs that allow you to keep the population of this garbage under relative control does not decrease. But for some users their functionality is not enough, and therefore they decide to take everything into their own hands. The results are simply catastrophic.
For example, they often delete the WinSxS directory. What kind of folder is this, and why can deleting it have a negative impact on the performance of your system? Let's find the answer to this question in our article.
What it is?
To understand why it is so important, it would first be a good idea to find out its purpose. First, we need to go back a little, talking about the history of the Windows OS. The fact is that the release of the well-known Windows XP was a truly significant event: the line of 9x systems was completely closed, after which the NT varieties became the main ones.
But the problem is that many functions that were in demand in older versions are, for one reason or another, necessary in new systems. As a rule, this is due to compatibility issues, for which old bugs from older versions were carefully transferred to Internet Explorer.
So, the WinSxS catalog became a repository for such ancient elements. What is this folder? Is it really just a system dump? No, it's not that simple.
Changing description files
When Windows Vista was released, profound changes occurred in the system kernel that were not externally visible. Thus, previously all components were described by INF files, while in Vista the “binary file + XML” practice was first introduced. This bundle contains almost everything from registry keys to system settings.
All these bundles are stored in WinSxS. What kind of folder is this, in simpler terms? It can be called an important system storage that contains all the information about the system. In fact, this directory is an OS in miniature. Now it’s clear what consequences its removal will cause?
Most often, after such a barbaric step, the system will not work at all. And if by some miracle some of its functions are preserved, then it will still be impossible to fully work on it.
Can it be cleaned?
Oddly enough, such an operation is quite acceptable. Over time, the size of this folder begins to grow rapidly. This is due to the fact that new connections arise between system components, and some of them are already outdated.
Do not forget also that the system is constantly changing and improving: for example, when you install updates, not only new, but also old versions of system files appear in the folder. This is done to be able to roll back to the old type of system.
Simply put, as a result of maintenance and adjustments, the volume of this directory will constantly increase until one day it exceeds all reasonable limits. But before you clear WinSxS, you should remember a few simple rules.
Firstly, to “sanitize” it, only system utilities from Microsoft itself should be used. Secondly, manual modification of its components is unacceptable, since the consequences of such “creativity” will be unpredictable. Thirdly, if you do not understand the meaning of this cleaning, and the size allows it, it is better to abandon such an idea altogether. You definitely won’t improve performance, but you can end up with a lot of problems.
How is cleaning done?
We have already said that before cleaning WinSxS, you need to use the services of a special utility. It is hidden in the depths of the system, and therefore ordinary users do not even suspect its existence. It's called DISM, and Windows is currently in its eighth version.
For the utility to run, you need administrator rights. To launch it in this mode, perform the following operations: click on the “Start” button, and in the menu that opens, find the search bar. Enter the word “CMD” into it and press the “Enter” button.
A list of found elements will appear on the right side of the window, including a file of the same name. Right-click on it, and in the context menu that pops up, select “Run as Administrator”.
First, we’ll find out whether the cleaning operation is really necessary at a particular moment. To do this, you need to use the following command: “Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore”.
After this, several strange lines will appear, the meaning of which we will now explain. So, after the line “Component Store
The second line indicates the actual size of all components, which is what you should be guided by. Finally, the very last value is the number of system files that have been replaced with new ones, and therefore can be safely deleted.
First way
It is the simplest and most effective. So, to make the Windows 7 WinSxS folder smaller, run Command Prompt in administrative mode. Enter the following command into it: “Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup”. A short time will pass, after which the system will notify you that the operation has completed.
Attention! If you performed the operation using the first method, then you don’t have to do all the other actions, since they will no longer make sense.
Second way
Run the command line emulator again in Administrator mode. Enter the command “cleanmgr” into it, then press the “Enter” key. The utility will start. In the latest versions of Windows, it can even determine the volume of old system update files, which can be painlessly removed from the OS.
Third way
This method is intended to remove all old versions of components that are no longer needed. It is extremely useful for owners of computers that have been running the same version of Windows for several years.
Important! If you use our advice, you will not be able to roll back the update. The warning is all the more important because recently Windows 7 users suffered a series of system failures associated with the unsuccessful patch KB2859537. However, if everything is fine with your OS, then the WinSxS folder (we tell you how to reduce it) can be revised.
This operation is performed using the command “Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase”. The gain in the amount of freed up disk space will directly depend on the total number of updates that you have installed since installing the system itself. It happens that the size of freed space is measured in gigabytes.
Is it worth cleaning it?
So, after all of the above, you may well be in some difficulty. And this is understandable: on the one hand, the gain in the amount of freed up space is attractive, but on the other... What will you do if some update file turns out to be problematic?
If there is a corresponding WinSxS file, then there is nothing to worry about. But when it is not there, in some cases only reinstalling the system can help. So before this operation, we strongly advise you to decide whether you really need this bit of free space. Moreover, as you know, in Windows 8 WinSxS is partially optimized by system tools, so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.