Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/windows_update_cleanup/

by Bender • 2 years ago

151 192 2 years ago

theregister.com

Daunk• 2 years ago

"since the rollout on October 15" I love articles from the future.

reaperducer• 2 years ago

At least it gives Microsoft a few days to fix it before time catches up to them!

wolf550e• 2 years ago

It updated my corp laptop a few days ago

arp242• 2 years ago

Windows 11's big 2024 update leaves behind 9GB of undeletable files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41802912 - Oct 2024 (26 comments)

coreyh14444• 2 years ago

yes, this has been posted several times already

numpad0• 2 years ago

there do seem to be more dupes lately...

radicalbyte• 2 years ago

Oh Windows is worse than that: basically every patch or installer you've ever run is also kept on your system. In addition to the files it installed. Remove them and it leads to lots of pain with updates & de-installations.

eviks• 2 years ago

indeed, such a poorly designed wasteful system, "amazed" it's still not fixed

nickpsecurity• 2 years ago

New feature for overlay file systems: tricking Windows into thinking the 8.63GB of junk you deleted is still there.

accrual2• 2 years ago

I hope we don't get overlay file systems in Windows. Such a headache to debug low disk space issues.

password4321• 2 years ago

Are there any ideas to make low disk space issues with overlay file systems easier to debug?

Perhaps another read-only virtual drive that accurately mirrored the actual underlying space used?

I wonder if something like this would help vs. cloud storage overlays like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.

ape4• 2 years ago

... and that's just in the registry (joke attempt)

BikiniPrince• 2 years ago

The micro distribution devs found that Replay is now a dependency for explorer. They have to install it and then disable it. Seems MSFT really wants those screenshots.

LinuxBender• 2 years ago

It was possible to disable it vs. removing using ShutUp10 in July. Have they since patched that away? If so could one create a scheduled job that runs in the same security scope that would truncate all the files? Or maybe add a RAM disk overlay? There must be a way to put an arrow in it's knee.

[1] https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 [freeware]

rererereferred2• 2 years ago

Is this Replay the same as Recall? The take a screenshot every 5 seconds AI thing? I saw disabling Recall would revert explorer to an older version. Personally I don't care for the changes to explorer, but how much will the system break if I leave the old version up.

bee_rider5• 2 years ago

Whatever happened to Microsoft? Did they become like this because they have trouble attracting decision-making talent post, like, 2010 or so?

Or were they always like this, and the bar was just incredibly low when they were taking over the world?

chongli• 2 years ago

Enshittification!

Microsoft used to earn a lot of revenue from selling perpetual software licenses (like any software company in the 1990s). Now they've pivoted over to services, SaaS, and ad-driven freemium software (Windows itself). They're not seeing any growth in Windows installs (and haven't in years), so in order to continue growing they've got to enshittify the existing install base!

Mountain_Skies3• 2 years ago

My theory is that they're now a Cloud Services company with a bunch of legacy junk attached that they really don't know what to do with, kind of like a person who changed careers but can't let their old wardrobe go. Azure and everything in its orbit are the stars of the company now; Windows is more and more of a distraction and an expense that needs to find ways to fund itself since consumers aren't willing to pay for a desktop OS, much less for constant updates. The solution is to make the users the product that's for sale.

gmueckl• 2 years ago

They were always like this. They deliberately broke early Windows compatibility with non-MS DOS implementations for no good technical reason. They bundled Internet Explorer as an unremovable component of Windows during their browser war with Netscape and made it hard to change defaults. They artificially added nonsense dependencies on IE throughout the OS like "ActiveDesktop", which rendered an HYML page as your desktop background. They created the atrocious Windows 8 desktop shell changes (now entirely rolled back) in a desperate effort to gain tablet market share. They added extensive phone-home telemetry with an uninspectable data stream that seemed to log every keystrokes at some point. They try to force the use of Microsoft Accounts to log into Windows. The current replay effort is only remarkable among all the other user-hostile changes in that it is a the biggest invasion of user privacy yet. In every other way, this is standard MS behavior.

GeekyBear2• 2 years ago

Whatever happened to Microsoft?

Personally, I think this has the same root cause as Microsoft trying to force everyone to log on to the local machine with an online Microsoft account, and telemetry that even the administrator can not completely turn off.

They want to gather personal interest data from your your computer use to fill out your online advertising profile.

They are looking to fully embrace the surveillance capitalism business model that has previously been so successful at Google and Meta.

andai• 2 years ago

What if you could remember everything? Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell draw on their experience from their MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research to explain the benefits to come from an earth-shaking and inevitable increase in electronic memories. In 1998 they began using Bell, a luminary in the computer world, as a test case, attempting to digitally record as much of his life as possible. Photos, letters, and memorabilia were scanned. Everything he did on his computer was captured. He wore an automatic camera, an arm-strap that logged his bio-metrics, and began recording telephone calls.

Blurb for Total Recall (2009), with foreword by Bill Gates.

https://www.amazon.com/Total-Recall-Memory-Revolution-Everyt...

phaedrus• 2 years ago

Instead of an Overton window imagine an Overton amoeba. Microsoft, as a monopolist, has for two decades been pushing out pseudopods in all directions against the boundaries of acceptable behavior for an operating system. ("All" directions, but overall in the direction of more corporate surveillance and less control and visibility for users, as well as profligate resource use.) So it's not that the bar was higher or lower in the past, just that the amorphous shape of the effontery is pushing out a new lobe.

npteljes• 2 years ago

Bar was very low, and they didn't win by making a better product, they won with business techniques, let's put it that way. Bundle Windows with new machines, have schools teach Windows and Office, let people pirate Windows and crack down only on business users, bribe officials to use and mandate Microsoft software and formats, the list goes on an on an on. Bill is a ruthless businessman and the others were not shy as well. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft products are plenty capable, but they didn't became the de facto PC and office standard by merit, they did so by force.

apatheticonion2• 2 years ago

I think Windows makes up 10% of Microsoft's revenue - which isn't a small dollar amount but is minor compared to their other divisions.

I suspect Microsoft is looking for ways to extract value from Windows rather than thinking about the OS as the critical computing infrastructure that it is.

Who knows where this road will end up. Maybe EU regulators will ensure there is a clean build of Windows available for those savvy enough to install it?

Maybe international governments will deem Windows a liability/threat and investment in Linux will increase?

Microsoft have the enterprise space locked down with Windows, many of the enterprise architects I've spoken to know little-to-nothing about Linux and have high praise for Active Directory. A transition away from Windows feels impractical - which further justifies the risk

hnlmorg• 2 years ago

They’ve always been like this. People who lived through 90s Microsoft will remember this kind of thing well.

But I will say, this isn’t just a Microsoft phenomenon. Apple, Google, pretty much any company will pull sleazy tactics if it improves their bottom line.

It’s just more painful with Microsoft because their products suck. So you don’t even get a consolidation of buying into a great but flawed product. You just get crap piled on top of more crap.

The fact that Microsoft are even remotely successful is a testament to how you need a good businessman (Gates) and a lot of luck (IBM vs Kildall) rather than the best tech on the market.

Gud• 2 years ago

They were always like this.

Actually, they were even worse under Bill Gates, who was smarter and more ruthless than his successors.

shams93• 2 years ago

Yeah thought I needed a new laptop but with XFCE instead of bloated windows I can code as much as I want now with almost 50% more drive space with XFCE than windows.

Scharkenberg• 2 years ago

We just began testing the upgrade to 24H2 this week and haven't noticed the issue on any of our test machines (about 80 amd64 devices and VMs so far).

betaby• 2 years ago

Linux on desktop is a thing. No need to suffer abuse from MS.

eknkc2• 2 years ago

I try to completely get into Linux desktop at least once a year.. Been more than 20 years I've been doing that. There is always some blocker. Had 2-3 months of exclusive linux use a couple of times but never stuck.

My latest main issue btw:

Fractional scaling does not work reliably. It just results in different type of fuckery for different apps. Yeah yeah I know wayland x11 this that. No. There are workarounds for different apps, env vars, cmd line flags. Some simply do not cooperate (JetBrains...) It is complete shit show.

It is just not worth it. I'm fine with macOS desktop and Linux on servers. And I salute all the masochists running Linux on their desktops.

boltzmann64• 2 years ago

At this point, I am afraid that you will never be able to switch to Linux completely. You know what they say, can't teach old dog new tricks. Linux has it's issues and Windows also has it's own issues. You have to choose which ones you can live with one you cannot.

For me, I use a FHD display where 100% scaling looks the best and also it's the small things I cannot live without, like Super+drag to drag/scale windows from anywhere, middle-click paste, powerful POSIX shells (yes, yes I know PowerShell, too old to learn a new shell), etc. But I cannot live with Windows privacy nightmare, mouse-heavy desktop environment.

Just do use what you like. Just have fun computing.

wilsonnb3• 2 years ago

I am on Windows for the same reason but KDE finally has fractional scaling that works just as well as Windows. AFAIK, it is the only Linux DE that has it though.

dartharva2• 2 years ago

Hasn't fractional scaling always been a problem on Linux? How is it your latest issue, did you never use Hi-DPI screens before?

dsego2• 2 years ago

It might be easier to buy a 2x resolution display, like the 2.8K Display on the framework laptop, and not have to deal with fractional scaling.

bboygravity3• 2 years ago

I want to love Linux, but No. Last time I tried Mint, I had to use a script that runs on startup to configure mouse scrollweel speed?!

No.

There's probably a long list of these types of experiences ranging from scaling issues on external monitors (if they work at all) to other basic hardware and functionality just not working.

The best coders I know use Mac or even Windows while managing FreeBSD on their servers. There are reasons why they don't use Linux or (non-Apple) Unix on their desktop.

There are 2 usable desktop OS'es for the masses and those are Windows and Mac. Don't take my word for it, just look at the market. The market has spoken.

mixmastamyk5• 2 years ago

Would you like a list of the hours needed to deshittify Windows (and free disk space)? Preventing macos telemetry is another time sink.

There’s no free lunch.

enlyth• 2 years ago

Yeah, I use Mint on my laptop (not my main PC), but it's a bit rough around the edges. I spent an hour trying to get the fingerprint reader to work, having to compile the driver myself, and it's still a bit buggy sometimes.

Bluetooth also randomly bugs out, mouse or airpods refuse to connect for no reason. Touchpad a bit wonky, pinch zoom doesn't work out of the box, I assume it's some setting somewhere but can't be bothered.

Discord can't update itself, I have to download and install it from a file each update.

Little things that add up to hours and hours of your time wasted.

akimbostrawman5• 2 years ago

Last time I tried Mint, I had to use a script that runs on startup to configure mouse scrollweel speed

not a linux but Mint issue. Both Plasma and GNOME offer this.

abhinavk2• 2 years ago

In 2024, Mint is a net negative to Linux adoption and its name.

echoangle4• 2 years ago

It’s just not ready for a non-technical user. Try to explain to your mother how to properly get NVIDIA graphics cards running. I couldn’t even do it myself. When I installed Debian, the included open source drive was unusable (lagging even when just moving the mouse) so I wanted to get the driver by NVIDIA. You need to mess around with secure boot and even then, I couldn’t log in using Wayland and would just loop back to the login screen because Wayland didn’t start properly. That’s not acceptable for noobs.

marcodiego• 2 years ago

My mom gives a f** about Nvidia.

packetlost• 2 years ago

Yeah, the ideal Linux desktop for non-technical people is a Chromebook. Roast me if you want, but that's what my mom uses. I did have her using a Ubuntu install awhile ago but the amount of times I had to provide technical support or her to do very normal stuff just made it impractical.

jnurmine• 2 years ago

For a "mother proof" / "noob" system, I'd recommend:

1. Install Ubuntu 2. Select closed source Nvidia driver during install 3. Done

I don't recall having to mess with secure boot -- is that some dual boot thing?

akimbostrawman5• 2 years ago

Try to explain to your mother how to properly get NVIDIA graphics cards running

why would she need that? 1. on almost all big distros thats included by default 2. 99% of user do not use a GPU they just browse the web.

DamonHD• 2 years ago

My mother taught me to program, and ran my first programs (FORTRAN) on paper with me. Please don't casually use "mother" or "grandmother" to mean technically incompetent.

FragmentShader3• 2 years ago

i'd rather have MS taking 8GB away from my 1TB disk than having Linux taking away at least 6 hours of my life per week cause something broke or cause I have to hoop through the entire internet to install or configure some shit that could've been a single click in windows.

AyyEye2• 2 years ago

This isn't 2010 any more. If you're doing any dev work at all native linux will cause way less headaches than WSL/mingw or whatever. Even the old folks in my family are all using linux these days because everything they do is in a browser and it's easier for them than windows. That and microsoft constantly changing things out from under you and reverting settings you thought you picked for your own computer.

RaiausderDose2• 2 years ago

Yeah, I know Linux can do gaming, dev and is stable and good. But there is always something which needs a hack / fix, different lib or something.

"Normal" people just take the convenience of a working system out of the box than having a privacy respecting OS.

Personal anecdote, installed Linux Mint on an old Laptop of a friend. First thing, we open Firefox and go to YouTube, hard freeze of the whole OS. Not a single key worked anymore.

Not the best advertisement for the stable and better OS Linux I was showing him.

not_your_vase• 2 years ago

I have been a full-time Linux use for over a decade, running Linux desktop on all my machines. But there is a reason for the year of Linux desktop not coming: it is garbage. Horrible defaults everywhere, every customization is hidden in some totally unexpected place, bad error handling, driver quality all over the place...

Learning Linux as a user and developer made my career, but I use it at home just out of spite (I feel a special hate towards MS), and not because it is such a great experience.

nucleardog• 2 years ago

I just got back from a work trip and conference where, for four days, my laptop couldn't go to sleep and wake back up. Every time my laptop went into my bag, I had to fully shut down the entire system then when I got where I was going spend a bunch of time starting everything back up, getting all my context back up, etc.

Good luck trying to search for sleep issues on Linux... I only managed to hunt anything down due to some incredible luck and a couple educated guesses.

Apparently some recent systemd update decided to start freezing user.slice during suspend and either there's something wrong with this or there are bugs in the kernel (I'm not going to try and figure out which) that this fails if you use unusual and esoteric things like "kvm" or "nfs". The only way to recover the machine when this happens is a particular Magic SysRq incantation since even switching to a console TTY doesn't work directly.

To resolve this in the meantime, you need to add a drop-in conf for systemd-suspend.service to set the `SYSTEMD_SLEEP_FREEZE_USER_SESSIONS` environment variable to revert the change in behaviour.

This isn't even getting into all the esoteric bullshit involved in getting everything to a reasonably usable state in the first place. (Never did get full disk encryption working and partial encryption involved a lot of failed starts and reinstalls; Steam wouldn't show anything but a black screen without setting DRI_PRIME; fingerprint scanner required editing some PAM configs and still doesn't _really_ work right; ...)

There is no chance in hell that the hours I've invested in Linux don't completely eclipse the hours it takes to deshittify Windows.

I'm not switching off, but I'm not also going to be flippant about suggesting other people switch to Linux. It's a project, and not one everyone is willing or capable to take on.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

This shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Microsoft’s Windows has a long and proud history of using users’ hard drives as their own dumping ground for trash, and for package management that fails to entirely clean up after uninstallations and updates. No respect whatsoever for the user’s filesystem.

Mountain_Skies3• 2 years ago

Starting to get the feeling that Microsoft puts all of their best devs and managers on Azure, and perhaps BI/Dynamic, with legacy products like Windows getting people they're going to PIP out the door eventually.

7bit• 2 years ago

Trust me, they dont. Many Things in Azure are Buggy as hell or idioticslly desogned

javcasas• 2 years ago

The guys at Azure aren't the best at all. My last Azure surprise: you can create custom attribute types for users. But you cannot update or delete these custom attribute types. So if you create one for testing because you are trying to figure out the UI, expecting to delete them, well FU the attributes are staying there forever.

ck2• 2 years ago

LTSC FTW https://old.reddit.com/r/WindowsLTSC/wiki/index

LeifCarrotson2• 2 years ago

LTSC eliminates so many antifeatures present in 11 and 10 Home, and also solves the problem of the EOL for 10 next year - Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is good through 2031.

Grab the "en-us_windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_257ad90f" ISO, sha1 begins 76c3c10e, from Microsoft:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

(Note that you have to set your user agent to something other than Windows.)

Run the activation script from Github:

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

And enjoy a Windows that feels like your own PC again, not Microsoft's.

I have to run a number of CAD programs and proprietary IDEs in a Win10 VM, this is the only way it's usable for me.

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

That’s way too complicated for the average person or business, who probably doesn’t even know recall is spying on them. We need to regulate and to break up or heavily tax megacorps like Microsoft

shepherdjerred2• 2 years ago

massgrave is also an excellent resource: https://massgrave.dev/

I would happily buy an LTSC license at a reasonable price but it doesn't appear possible.

xiaodai• 2 years ago

disk swap files?

accrual2• 2 years ago

On Windows the swap file is usually C:\pagefile.sys, and the size is configurable (even to zero if needed).

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

I always set it to something like 4GB min/max for nostalgia, I don’t even know if it matters any longer, but that’s what I do on my friends’ computers when they ask me to clean it up a bit; glad I exited windows years ago though.

RaiausderDose2• 2 years ago

Bleachbit is very good (with community cleaup file even more) to get rip of trash remains of installs, temp files, game saves, Steam Cache etc.

throwaway918299• 2 years ago

So glad I switched to MacOS for my desktop system a few years ago.

Microsoft will never get another penny from me.

wwweston2• 2 years ago

The funny thing is that I'd been looking at switching to Windows from MacOS in the last 5 years -- main thing is Microsoft's tradition of backwards compatibility, which respects user investment in software, something that much of the industry is briming with contempt for, and the kindest thing I could say about Apple on this particular topic is that they're not the worst offender.

So, bought a Windows Laptop and a Surface Pro, explored that for a bit, and it was ... OK. I could see my hopes getting some kind of payoff with enough work, when I got around to the work. Until this OS-level surveillance stuff went down.

And that's it. I can't imagine investing in their platforms. I can't imagine trusting that the product stakeholders are even capable of learning to act with user interests in mind, or that executive management that created a team making decisions this bad is capable of learning either.

MacOS and Apple have their issues, but they haven't crossed that threshold yet and I can probably fix my backward compat issues with VMs.

(Some responsibility for trusting MS has to fall on me given the "fool me twice" principle, it was clear that they were fundamentally untrustworthy at least as far back as the 90s antitrust trials, now also seems clear that the recent image rehab was exactly that: image, nothing more.)

queuebert2• 2 years ago

Apple is pretty bad. They nuked all 32-bit support at some point, which made almost my entire Steam library unplayable until I cobbled together a Windows box. When coupled with the idiotic UI design direction they have taken the last 10 years, MacOS is no longer a contender for me.

Technetium• 2 years ago

This feels like clickbait, and also may be a duplicate.

rbanffy• 2 years ago

How is it even possible to have files a user with admin privileges can’t delete?

isoprophlex• 2 years ago

This makes more sense when you realise that you're not the user of your computer, but a resource to be exploited.

mmh0000• 2 years ago

`Administrator` isn't the most powerful user on Windows, `SYSTEM` is[1].

Those lingering files are likely created/owned by SYSTEM

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-...

pzmarzly• 2 years ago

Doesn't Administrator account have permission to register new system services (e.g. in services.msc) and have them run as SYSTEM account? I thought it is the case but never tried.

tavavex4• 2 years ago

Looking at all the articles about this issue, this seems to be more about a bug in the Windows cleanup tool that lets the user delete old update files. Maybe the tool isn't working properly, or it's flagging update files as deletable and they're not supposed to be. Admin users can still delete whatever they want manually, unless the system or something else is currently accessing the file. The OS sometimes protects its system files by having them be owned by the SYSTEM user, but the admin can take ownership of them to delete them. This hasn't changed and I can't see it changing.

queuebert2• 2 years ago

Could always mount the NTFS on a live Linux USB. Physical access > admin login.

akimbostrawman5• 2 years ago

its not your Computer

layer82• 2 years ago

You probably can with the usual two-step process: First change the permissions (which an admin is allowed to), then delete.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41802912

rsp1984• 2 years ago

Not trying to sound like a dork, but 9 GB -- that's nothing.

MacOS routinely eats 30-40 GB of HD space in Volumes/Preboot and "macOS Install Data" for god knows what. Plus even a bare bones XCode installation will cost around 20 GB, much more if you actually want to run your code on connected devices.

But of course saving disk space is not exactly #1 on Apple's priority list when the 512 GB and 1 TB disk upgrades sell at 80% margin.

tombert2• 2 years ago

I agree. I don’t run Windows, but even a relatively cheap laptop will have a 1tb disk. It seems silly to worry too much about an extra 9 gigs used by the OS.

dfasdfast4• 2 years ago

I run windows on a 150gb partition for a couple of games, rest is linux for work.

9gb doesn't seem like much but it's wasted space I get to pay for but am not able to use.

filchermcurr• 2 years ago

I have a 256 GB Macbook Air and losing 9 GB would make me cry. :(

whartung• 2 years ago

Considering that 9GB free is all you have after you back up your phone once, that's no surprise.

bravetraveler• 2 years ago

Another form of 'comparison is the thief of joy'. Don't accept either

Sakos2• 2 years ago

There's a subdirectory in the Windows folder (WinSxS) that can easily eat up 50+GB and deleting files there or in the Installer subdirectory can easily break things like updating any Adobe products you might have installed (which I've experienced directly and seen plenty of reports about online). 9GB is a joke and so is that article.

abhinavk2• 2 years ago

WinSxS (introduced with NT6.0, Vista) is the component store. It stores most of system files which are versioned and it's what solved DLL hell. Files in other system folders are hardlinks to them.

On my 1 year old install, it's 9GB with only 4GB allocated i.e. with no hardlinks outside WinSxS. So delete stuff outside instead of messing up with this folder.

radlad• 2 years ago

Even 1TB isn't enough for me these days, especially since Lightroom requires your catalog be on your boot disk.

But 2TB and 4TB upgrades, in addition to a cost of I think $400/$800 respectively, require you move up a CPU model as well - a HUGE increase in cost that most users can't justify through improved performance.

atoav• 2 years ago

Depedns on the use case. As someone using all 3 major desktop operating systems regularily, guess which one is my choice for performance critical, rugged, cheap applications.

And before someone says that mjcrosoft doesn't go after that space: a lot of ticket automats, ATMs, Kiosk displays etc. run Windows under the hood. And 9GB times the amount of devices out there are a lot of gigabytes someone has to pay.

And even if for that usecase there is a special slimmed down version of the OS one could argue that they would profit from their main desktop OS and their main embedded OS not drifting apart.

saagarjha• 2 years ago

An Xcode install is 12 GB.

vetinari3• 2 years ago

That's apparent size; the size taken on disk is ~5 GB (including command line tools).

mixmastamyk5• 2 years ago

If it were only 9, you might have a point, but as mentioned it is only one of many instances.

oefrha• 2 years ago

No, that 9GB is in addition to the ~40GB already taken up by C:\Windows.

jeffbee• 2 years ago

Is that a lot?

shepherdjerred2• 2 years ago

Not really. Some dislike the idea of wastefulness, others want a reason to hate on Microsoft, and a minority are actually on 128gb/256gb drives where 9GB can actually be meaningful.

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

It’s a lot on a MacBook but not on a windows laptop where it’s easy to swap out to a much bigger drive :) . I still prefer my apple/linux world however and glad that all the software that I need to use currently lives there.

millzlane• 2 years ago

Luckily Microsoft is upfront about the storage requirements in the specs.

486sx33• 2 years ago

Haha oh I thought you meant all the other crap windows hordes that you can’t delete like, copilot, weather, news, internet explorer, Skype, teams, new teams , old teams F you Microsoft , what does any of this garbage have to do with an operating system ??

Unbefleckt• 2 years ago

I had copilot suddenly appear last week, but I just right clicked and uninstalled it?

apatheticonion2• 2 years ago

My ROG Ally cries

Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete

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