Free Up Disk Space In Windows 10 By Deleting Windows Update Files

Windows 10 preserves a copy of all the applied updates even when newer updates are applied. While this is useful when trying to roll back updates, it gradually consumes a lot of disk space over time.

disk space to be freed up in Windows 10 by deleting the update files

Here is how to delete them if using Storage sense to free up disk space doesn’t help :

Open the Run box (shortcut keyWin key+ R) and type in : services.msc

 

accessing Windows Run box to manage services

Next, scroll down to Windows Update service and right-click on it. Then choose Stop.

stopping the Windows Update service in Windows 10

Then, open File Explorer (Win key + E) and in the Windows folder, locate the folder named Software Distribution.

locating the SoftwareDistribution folder in Windows 10

Rename it to something else like SoftwareDistribution_old. (If the Windows Update service wasn’t stopped before this, there will be an error while renaming this folder.)

renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder in Windows 10

Reboot the PC.

After rebooting, there will now be two folders – SoftwareDistribution and SoftwareDistribution_old. Delete this old folder.

deleting the old SoftwareDistribution folder in Windows 10

The disk space will now be freed up as these Windows Update files would’ve been deleted. (In this example, about 5 GB of disk space was freed solely by deleting the Windows Update files once the updates were applied.)

freed up disk space in Windows 10 after deleting the Windows Update files

All done.

  1. Rohan Singh says:

    Hello,
    Thank You, I never think that I can free up such a huge amount of amount. It helps me to free up to approx 5GB space.