How to Free up Hard Drive Space With Windows 10 After the October Update
It looks like Microsoft is ramping up its major system updates for Windows, now one every six months or so. But the problem, besides Redmond eating up your files , is that Windows updates always leave a lot of temporary files and other space-consuming junk on your computer. This can add up over time and consume a lot of wasted gigabytes that you might not – and shouldn’t – be able to save.
To prevent this problem, it is recommended that you clean up these temporary files after every major Windows 10 update. This is a simple process that was first illustrated in a recent article on GroovyPost.
Open the Settings app in Windows 10, then the System section and then the Storage section. If you then scroll down, you will see the ” Free up space now” option . Click this.
Windows will now scan your computer and present you with a list of items that you can safely remove. Be sure to read each description carefully to make sure you really want to delete it – once something is gone, there will be no change.
If you are nervous for any reason, consider creating a system restore point before erasing these temporary files, in the rare event that something goes wrong. As you probably already know, a system restore point will “roll back” your computer to an earlier version if something is wrong with it.
To make a system restore point in Windows 10:
- Open the Start menu and search for “Create a restore point”.
- Click the System Properties result.
- When the window opens, select your primary system drive under “Protection Options” and click the “Create” button.
- Enter a description to identify the restore point. I usually only use the date.
- Click Create.
Going back to freeing up hard drive space if you go piece by piece, the only item that will go a long way towards uninstalling is any files associated with “previous Windows installations.” As you can see in the screenshot above, old files that we no longer need were taking up 28 gigabytes of space – not much if your drive is a terabyte or more, but not much for a smaller SSD.
When you’re ready to make your choice, check the boxes next to the items you want to remove and click the Delete Files button at the bottom. You may need to restart your computer to shut down, but be prepared to use whatever free space you saved when Windows boots up again.
How to Free Up Tons of Disk Space After Windows 10 1809 Update | GroovyPost