Should I exclude LCU folder from backup?

I've been running a Macrium Home (v8.0 Build 6392) daily incremental backup on my C: drive that starts at 1:30 AM. Today it finished at 4:15 PM - 14+ hours to back up one drive. Totally unacceptable.

So I started looking for ways to speed up the backup. First I ran a disk cleanup. Then I changed the default locations for new Documents, Pictures, and Videos. I also moved all of those files to another physical HDD. While poking around, I came across the folder C:\Windows\servicing\LCU. Some research tells me this folder contains the Latest Consolidated Update. My Windows LCU is Package_for_RollupFix and the folder contains 70,005 sub-folders, each of which contains two additional sub-folders which contain 1 or more files.

I'm wondering if I can exclude these folders from my backup. Any suggestions?

Hardware - Software
Processor - Intel Core i9-10900K CPU @ 3.70GHz
Installed RAM - 128GB
C: Drive - Intel SSD PEKNW010T9 (1 TB) - 154GB in use
Windows - version 20H2 (Build 19042.1348)

Dino Rider said:

I've been running a Macrium Home (v8.0 Build 6392) daily incremental backup on my C: drive that starts at 1:30 AM. Today it finished at 4:15 PM - 14+ hours to back up one drive. Totally unacceptable.

So I started looking for ways to speed up the backup. First I ran a disk cleanup. Then I changed the default locations for new Documents, Pictures, and Videos. I also moved all of those files to another physical HDD. While poking around, I came across the folder C:\Windows\servicing\LCU. Some research tells me this folder contains the Latest Consolidated Update. My Windows LCU is Package_for_RollupFix and the folder contains 70,005 sub-folders, each of which contains two additional sub-folders which contain 1 or more files.

I'm wondering if I can exclude these folders from my backup. Any suggestions?

Hardware - Software
Processor - Intel Core i9-10900K CPU @ 3.70GHz
Installed RAM - 128GB
C: Drive - Intel SSD PEKNW010T9 (1 TB) - 154GB in use
Windows - version 20H2 (Build 19042.1348)

To exclude the LCU folder or not... is up to you.
Personally, I just open a command prompt as admin and run this command...

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup


This will remove all the subfolders in LCU except the last (most recent one).
Each of the subfolders in LCU is approx. 1GB+
So if you see 15 subfolders in LCU... that's about 16GB total.

Every time you do a Windows Update it creates a new subfolder in LCU.

Dino Rider said:

... I came across the folder C:\Windows\servicing\LCU. ...I'm wondering if I can exclude these folders from my backup. Any suggestions?

As Ghot says, DISM (or Disk Cleanup > clean up system files) will let you clean up all but the most recent LCU. It's not quite as bad as he says though. You will never see 15 LCUs there. Windows Update will only ever keep the three most recent ones.

I actually go one step further and delete the latest one myself. This is safe to do, but has the downside that you will no longer be able to uninstall the latest cumulative update after you do so.

First I ran a disk cleanup....

There is one area that Disk Cleanup cannot touch. If you use third party browsers such as Firefox or Chrome then it will not clean up their temporary internet files. Microsoft's clean up tools will only clean up their own browser Edge (and IE if you still have it). If you do use 3rd-party browser(s), then either clear their cache from within the browser or use a 3rd-party cleaning tool to do so. These browsers store their cache in your C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData folder, so it would be included in a system image. Left unchecked they can amount to quite a few GB.

The one thing you do NOT need to worry about are restore points. Macrium Reflect excludes them from a system image automatically.


If you are making a Macrium Reflect system image it's not that easy to exclude folders. To do so you have to create a registry entry.

How to exclude files from a Disk Image - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

What was the maximum write speed for the backup?
Is the external drive you’re backing up to USB 2 or USB 3?
I can backup a 2TB SSD in a max of 4 hours (full image) & this includes verifying the image. 14 hours is way too long.