Windows takes entire 32gb of my tablet storage. Alone.

@CountMike I know its too much but well its not my doing, windows 10 is trash IMO. not much i can do about it. uncleaner gave me about 200MB so not too useful.

@cereberus I tried to use disk cleanup, both the normal way and how NavyLCDR suggested. still I only have about 1GB free.

ATM im a bit stuck because windows update will not install updates. it wants an extra 1.5GB which I dont have and didnt manage to free up with any method.
im going to preform disk cleanup again but im not hopeful, so while its doing its thing. any other suggestions?

thanks everyone for trying to help :)

Hi,
You might go through this one too whether you're dealing with a windows old folder or a update adviser folder might differ :/
Delete Windows.old Folder in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

Delete Windows10Upgrade Folder in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

Export the manufacturer specific drivers using dism. Make a backup image of the MMC memory ("hard drive") using Macrium Reflect Free. Do a clean install of Windows 10.

yossis1 said:

it seemed to me like windows update has a lot to do with this..

It does, and there may yet be some more space to reclaim. If you have not already done so, you could try Option Three in this tutorial.

OPTION THREE

Clean Up Component Store (WinSxS folder) using /StartComponentCleanup and /ResetBase with Dism Command

Note
Using the /ResetBase switch with the /StartComponentCleanup parameter of DISM.exe on a running version of Windows 10 removes all superseded versions of every component in the component store.



Warning
All existing service packs and updates cannot be uninstalled after this command is completed. This will not block the uninstallation of future service packs or updates.

Clean Up Component Store (WinSxS folder) in Windows 10

yossis1 said:

So some progress:
it seemed to me like windows update has a lot to do with this.
First i deleted SoftwareDistribution, gained 5GB. now with 6gb free I let the tablet preform updates. it took a really long time, eventually it failed, leaving me again with not much space.
then i saw that most of these failed updates are MS office 16 related. so i uninstalled that (even tho it was stored on external sd card) and bam, Installer folder is now 30MB, freeing up 7.6GB. add to 5GB of SoftwareDistribution, i now have 12.6GB free.
I dont know why office causes that. my desktop pc also has MSO16 and a big Installer folder, so i suspect the same situation only that it doesnt bother me on a desktop.
add to this MSOCache folder and its over 8GB, altho i moved that folder to the sd card as well.

edit: now I see that other folders have shrunk as well. system32 4.6 to 2.4, winsxs 7.5 to 1.7, syswow64 1.3 to 1.1, microsoft.NET 760MB to 14MB, assembly reduced 150mb, fonts reduced 300mb. I just uninstalled office lol

Still, the suggestions on this tread are great, thanks everyone for your help, compacting the os alone saved me 2GB I think.
now I'm not sure what to do with MSO16, maybe I wont install it? google docs is enough for 99% of what i do but sometimes i do need MSO features... weird stuff.
I may post an update on this since now i have to deal with OS updates. one advantage of having no space is that windows update couldn't do it thing, i enjoyed no windows update. espacially on such a device where an update could take hours and ruin stuff.... oh well..

another thing is a almost went with cerebrus suggestion to simply reinstall the OS. one reason is that i cant figure out why this tablet shipped with 64bit OS and 2GB RAM, I think this might slow this tablet down due to higher ram usage. i guess its a driver issue but i haven't checked.

As I said earlier, you could gain 12GB by cleaning up software distribution and installer directories!

You have some good tips above but take care when cleaning the Windows folder. You should have a Windows folder size c. 15-20GB.

I suggest the following in addition to the above:

1. Use Driver Store Explorer to identify and delete old/unused drivers - see https://driverstoreexplorer.codeplex.com/
2. Delete files in c:\windows\temp
3. Delete files in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
4. Use Tree Size Free to see which folders are taking up space in case you have missed cleaning folders you are 'allowed' to delete - see https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

I'm not so sure about this:

CountMike said:

32 GB for windows folder alone is waaay too much, here's mine on a full blown desktop computer and hundreds of programs installed: (picture showing 17.2 GB usage)

My Lenovo desktop has 16.3 GB in C:/windows
My Dell desktop has 31.3 GB in C:/windows

So it's not clear to me how much is "too much".