cut down windows 10?

Heedtheadvice

For a notebook with a rather limited SSD the vast majority of the disk space is taken up by win 10 leaving very little for new apps and data storage.
Can win 10 be 'trimmed' to reduce it's storage needs?
There will also be a bit of supplied bloatware but by size thanks relatively small.
Notebook is a newish hp stream with a 30GB disk, a couple of games added but now under 3GB space remaining.

Tia

dipsomaniac

have you cleared temp system files?

Heedtheadvice

errr probably not! Have cleared recycle bin and temp files folder. ......but brain fails about temp system files!!!! Thanks!
Can you remind me where and how and if there are any drawbacks? In the meantime creating rescue media and taking a backup! (Macrium Reflect as my preference)

debitcardmayhem

Also check to see if you have a windows.old folder , my win10 virtual machine has 15.7 GB free out of 32

Heedtheadvice

Will do thanks. Win 10 is now trying to update (twas on a version 15xx) and need 8GB just for that and from what you say there is lots I should clean up. Disk cleanup doing some sums at present.

wongataa

Heedtheadvice wrote: »

errr probably not! Have cleared recycle bin and temp files folder. ......but brain fails about temp system files!!!! Thanks!
Can you remind me where and how and if there are any drawbacks? In the meantime creating rescue media and taking a backup! (Macrium Reflect as my preference)

Run the built in disk cleanup utility There is no downside in removing temp files.

Heedtheadvice

Well windows update files taking up 4GB, but no windows.old folder.

RumRat

Google 'Windows 10 Lite' and see if there's anything that suits your needs.

emptybox

Another thing you could do, even if only temporarily when updating, is to disable Hibernation.
This uses a file called hiberfil.sys to store everything in RAM onto the hard drive, when you go into hibernation, and can take up many GBs of space.
Disabling it also disables Windows Fast Startup, as it uses the same system.
It doesn't affect putting the laptop to sleep by closing the lid.

To disable open a command prompt as Administrator (type "command" into search box and right click the Command Prompt app and select 'Run as administrator')
then type

powercfg -h off

and press enter.

powercfg -h on

to re-enable.


ETA: Also go into System Restore and see how much space previous restore points are taking up.

Heedtheadvice

Thanks for further ideas.
Had a look at lite but don't think it is for the user (a relative).
Switching off hibernate would be useful during update, thanks, and will check if it is used at all!

Cleanup has now produced over 5GB free space so will look for ideas to get more.

Debbie_Savard

Windows 10 with full Office 2016 plus some apps takes about 20Gb on my netbook.

With these devices often having a 32Gb SSD, it's worth removing the OEM 'recovery' partition which can be 8GB in size and expanding the partition used for C: drive