Minimal installation of Windows 10 Pro on a non-upgradeable 32GB disk

bomberb17 said:

Thanks really helpful, especially the last video. Will give it a shot!

You are welcome!

bomberb17 said:

It looks like the first three steps you mentioned are sufficient for now - these freed about 3GB in total!

Following those three steps (running always DISM first) after every update, you may get rid of about 1GB usually, getting back almost all of the free space you had before.

Note: Disc Cleanup is deprecated by MS and almost always cannot remove update remnants.

There are also two 'wise' suggestions in previous posts:
1. by bobkn about Hibernation : Disabling it, you gain space and you lose "Fast Startup" which you don't need because of SSD.
2. by Fabler2 about System Restore and Macrium : Really nice solution because of System Restore unreliability and size on disk.

bomberb17 said:

What is the bare minimum but realistic space a Windows 10 Pro 1909 installation can use, and how is it done?

bomberb17 said:

So is it a fact that 1809 and 1607 take less space on disk? If yes I might consider downgrading and only make the necessary security updates.

This is my most recent clean install of Windows 10 Pro 1909. It's a standard install, I took no special measures to slim it down. It has all my usual software installed including Firefox, LibreOffice and Macrium Reflect. I do however routinely clean up the component store, remove restore points and clean up the internet cache of all my browsers with CCleaner. I don't like to let it get too bloated, if only to keep the Macrium Reflect image size small.

It occupies a total of 25GB.



If I wanted to I could slim that down by a further 1.5GB by disabling hibernation, and perhaps further still by compacting the OS.

Compress or Uncompress Windows 10 with Compact OS

Out of interest (and with a Macrium image to go back to) I thought I'd see how it would go. Got the total down to less than 18GB.



I wouldn't let Reserved Storage put you off using the latest version of Windows, it can be disabled.

Enable or Disable Reserved Storage in Windows 10

In fact, if you upgrade from 1809 or ealier to 1909 it doesn't even get set up. It's only when you do a clean install of 1909 that you get any Reserved Storage allocated.

Bree said:

...I wouldn't let Reserved Storage put you off using the latest version of Windows, it can be disabled.

Enable or Disable Reserved Storage in Windows 10 ...

A really valuable info! Since 1809, I used to upgrade, although I don't like it, because of that "Reserved Storage" fruit. I didn't know there's a way to get rid of it. I'd searched for it in the past, with no result.

THANK YOU @Bree!!!