✔️ Top 3 Ways to Delete Old Windows Update Files from Windows 10 and Windows 11
– Reviews News
Windows Updates bring new features, security enhancements, and bug fixes to your PC. However, these updates leave behind old installer files, which can take up a significant amount of storage space on your PC. Thus, you can reclaim storage space once you know how to get rid of old Windows update files.
Windows 10 and Windows 11 have dedicated folders to save updates that failed to install. Until you install the updates, the large number of files are in your computer storage. Luckily, there are several ways to delete old Windows Update files. We will share these solutions to help you get more storage space on your hard drive or primary partition. So, without further ado, let's cut to the chase.
Why and when to delete old Windows update files?
One of the biggest benefits of deleting old Windows Update files is that it frees up storage space. Especially if you're using a small SSD, deleting old update files will free up quite a few GB on your drive.
However, you should never delete these files after installing a Windows update, as this will remove the option to roll back to the previous version. Therefore, it is best to remove old Windows update files only if your computer is working without any faults and you have no intention of rolling back to the previous version.
With that out of the way, let's look at three easy ways to remove old Windows update files from your PC. Although we used a Windows 11 PC to capture screenshots for this article, you can use all of these methods on Windows 10 as well.
1. Delete old Windows update files through the Settings app
The Storage section of the Settings app provides a detailed breakdown of all temporary files on your PC, including old Windows Update files. This is how you can access it to remove old copies of Windows Updates.
Step 1: Right-click on the Start menu icon and select Settings from the list. You can also press Windows Key + I to quickly launch the Settings app.
Step 2: In the System tab, navigate to Storage in the right pane.
Step 3: Click Temporary Files.
Step 4: Check the boxes that say "Windows Update Cleanup" and "Delivery Optimization Files". Uncheck everything else.
5nd step : Once selected, click the “Delete Files” button at the top. When a message appears, click Continue.
Wait for Windows to delete the selected files and free up storage space.
2. Delete Old Windows Update Files with Disk Cleanup Tool
Disk Cleanup is a handy Windows tool that lets you free up valuable storage space on your PC by deleting unnecessary files. You can also use it to remove old Windows update files. Here's how.
Step 1: Click the Search icon on the taskbar, type disc cleaningand select Run as administrator.
Step 2: Use the drop-down menu to select your main unit and click OK.
Step 3: Check the "Windows Update Cleanup" and "Delivery Optimization Files" boxes. Then click OK.
Step 4: Choose Delete Files to confirm.
3. Delete old Windows update files from software distribution folder
Windows stores all downloaded update files in the SoftwareDistribution folder. Sometimes existing downloaded files when Windows Update downloads are stuck or not downloading completely. After Windows installs these updates, you can delete files from the SoftwareDistribution folder to free up storage space. To do this, you must first stop the Windows Update service by following the steps below.
Step 1: Press Windows key + S to access the search menu. To write services in the box and select the first result that appears.
Step 2: In the Services window, you will find all the services listed in alphabetical order. Scroll down to locate Windows Update service, right-click it and select Stop.
After stopping the Windows Update service, you can follow the steps below to remove old Windows Update files from the SoftwareDistribution folder.
Step 1: Right-click on the Start menu and select Run from the resulting menu.
Step 2: To write C:\Windows\Software Distribution in the Open field and press Enter.
Step 3: Select all files in the SoftwareDistribution folder and click the trash can icon at the top to delete them.
After deleting the folder, open the Services window again (check the steps above) and start the Windows Update service.
Free up storage space in Windows
Deleting old Windows Update files is a good way to free up storage space without compromising your personal data. Moreover, it is completely safe to do so. You can use any of the above methods to remove old Windows update files with just a few clicks.
Still running out of storage space? Learn how to enable and use the Storage Sense feature to configure Windows to automatically delete unnecessary files.
SOURCE: Reviews News
Don't forget to share our article on social networks to give us a solid boost. 👓