How to Reduce Upcoming Reserved Hard Drive Requirements for Windows 10
Windows 10 users may soon notice that their hard drive storage is organized slightly differently.
Starting with the next major Windows 10 system update, codenamed 19H1, the operating system will allocate a portion of your PC’s hard drive as reserved storage for important system updates and temporary files (periodically deleting them as needed). When it’s time to update the system, the OS will clear the reserved space and use it to store update files.
While losing some of your disk space seems inconvenient, this setup has its advantages. Temporary files will now be isolated from your main storage, making them less likely to accumulate on your hard drive, and Windows Update files will have their own dedicated destination.
While the reserved space allocation will happen automatically and cannot be disabled without some registry changes (even if it does when Microsoft’s update goes public in April), there are ways to minimize the amount of space it will take up. Let’s take a closer look at how much space Microsoft plans to allocate on your computer and how to make it as small as possible.
Decrease Windows 10 Reserved Space
Microsoft estimates the operating system will initially reserve around 7GB, although this number may change based on user feedback and performance data. However, you have several options that you can try to reduce the space Microsoft reserves for system updates.
Remove additional features
Open the Windows Start menu, then select Settings> Apps> Apps & Features> Manage Advanced Features.
From here, you can remove additional features that you don’t need. It’s worth noting that not all additional features are manually installed, some are added automatically or pre-installed on your PC, so you might find something to cut out here.
Remove languages you are not using
Open the Start menu, then go to Settings> Time & Language> Region & Language.
The Preferred Languages section contains a list of installed language packs. You should remove anything you don’t need or need, but don’t remove the languages that you actually use. As with additional features, check this even if you think you haven’t installed additional language packs, in case you downloaded an additional language pack earlier and don’t remember.
Previewing Reserved Storage Space
Even after taking the preventive measures described above, you won’t be able to see how much space will be reserved on your hard drive until it is officially allocated by Windows 10 19H1.
However, you can work around the guessing game by enabling the Windows Insider Tool to try out a build of Windows that contains this feature (Build 18298). To do this, you will need to apply to the Insider Program and follow the steps to download the latest OS build for Insider Assessment (in the Fast Ring). You will then need to complete this “quest” through the Windows Feedback Hub to enable this feature.
Keep in mind that the Windows Insider Program essentially subscribes to beta testing, which opens up the possibility of bugs or stability issues when using Insider builds prior to their general availability.