Windows Directory large WinSxs

13th May 2025

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

this will ask you to reboot if it cleans up some backups

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

The above will remove all previous versions of updates that were kept so you can roll back. you won’t be able to rollback after this command.

More info here https://woshub.com/how-to-clean-up-and-compress-winsxs-folder-in-windows-8/

c:\windows\installer dir is >20gb

download patchCleaner here https://www.homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner

it finds the orphaned files and lets you back them up to an external drive