As someone who admins Windows systems for a living as part of my job, two options come to mind: Windows update files, or sync’d content from a file share.
Network file shares that are mapped to a drive letter, and set to be “always available” or “available offline” end up in a hidden subfolder of the windows directory.
Windows updates are stored there too.
There’s also a small matter regarding log files. My best recommendation is to use something like windirstat or wiztree running as an administrator (so it can “see” all the files), which should tell you what directory or subfolder or file is taking up all that space.
winsxs folder can grow to 50 GB too. But there’s lots of versions of libraries, hard linked to where the original file should be, with no way to clean that up. Caused by lots of installations and updates over time. Only solution is reinstalling the system.
Imho, scoop can save you some of that trouble, since it only copies files and adds registry entries, instead of using Windows setup interfaces. It makes updates easier too.
My dang /windows directory is like 160 GB and as far as I can tell there’s nothing abnormal going on! It’s infuriating. It’s just growing slowly.
Probably left over bits from various windows updates
Probably should run disk cleanup
Time to reformat :)
As someone who admins Windows systems for a living as part of my job, two options come to mind: Windows update files, or sync’d content from a file share.
Network file shares that are mapped to a drive letter, and set to be “always available” or “available offline” end up in a hidden subfolder of the windows directory.
Windows updates are stored there too.
There’s also a small matter regarding log files. My best recommendation is to use something like windirstat or wiztree running as an administrator (so it can “see” all the files), which should tell you what directory or subfolder or file is taking up all that space.
Good luck
winsxs folder can grow to 50 GB too. But there’s lots of versions of libraries, hard linked to where the original file should be, with no way to clean that up. Caused by lots of installations and updates over time. Only solution is reinstalling the system.
Imho, scoop can save you some of that trouble, since it only copies files and adds registry entries, instead of using Windows setup interfaces. It makes updates easier too.