More than 8Gb of free space disappeared after Fall Creators Update

I already used Cleanmgr and deleted windows.old, etc, but still I have about 8-10 Gb of free space LESS than before I installed the Update.
Before I installed the Update, I had 51 Gb of free space. Now, after the installation and all the cleanings, it's 42,9.

Can this be only related to Windows Update installation files, that can be deleted only after a few days, if my memory helps me?

If you have system protection turned on then there may be some restore points as well. The upgrade to 16299.15 and the subsequent cumulative update to 16299.19 made five new restore point on my PC, occupying 3.95GB. This tutorial tells you how to find out (and delete them all if you wish).

Turn On or Off System Protection for Drives in Windows 10

Alternatively, delete all but the latest one in Disk Clean up (clean up system files). See option one, step 7 'To Delete all but the most recent Restore Point' in this tutorial.

Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

Bree said:

If you have system protection turned on then there may be some restore points as well. The upgrade to 16299.15 and the subsequent cumulative update to 16299.19 made five new restore point on my PC, occupying 3.95GB. This tutorial tells you how to find out (and delete them all if you wish).

Turn On or Off System Protection for Drives in Windows 10

Alternatively, delete all but the latest one in Disk Clean up (clean up system files). See option one, step 7 'To Delete all but the most recent Restore Point' in this tutorial.

Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

Yes, thanks. I already have System Protection disabled and I also tried Disk Cleanup and extended Disk Cleanup. I guess, I just have to wait to delete Update files.

Sounds like you have done all you can for now. There are a few more things you could check, but they probably won't find much.

One other thing you could look at is the swapfile. If this is set to 'System managed' it will grow as needed, but it doesn't seem to shrink when not needed. If yours pagefile.sys seems too large (typically it should be no larger that your RAM) then try turning it off then back on again to reset the size.

Another is to look at your %temp% folder. Disk Cleanup normally only deletes older (about a week?) temp files in case the newest may be still be needed. It is safe to delete anything in %temp%, if a file is in use you won't be allowed to, anything you can delete isn't in use.

Finally run a disk check in case there are any lost clusters.

Also this update turns on Fast Startup which creates a hibernate file. If you had previously turned off hibernate, this update would restores it.

pbcopter said:

Also this update turns on Fast Startup which creates a hibernate file. If you had previously turned off hibernate, this update would restores it.

Good point, I had forgotten that one (mine was already turned on). The hiberfil.sys it creates will be a bit less than half the size of your installed RAM.

Use WinDirStat program to find out files that are taking lot more storage spaces.

topgundcp said:

After FCU from 1703 to 1709, My Windows actually get smaller in size ~1GB:



In addition to the above:

1. Run from Admin Command: dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
   To clean up WinSxS folder.
2. Delete everything under: C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
   Those are files and folders downloaded during upgrade and can be deleted to free up the space.
3. Even though you turned off "System Protection". Double check if you also click on "Delete" all restore points. Subsequent updates might turn "System Protection" on again(from build 16299.15 to 16299.19)

Thanks, mate. I was a little afraid about the "dism" command. It looked like a restore image command. But it freed about 6-7 Gb