Doing Disk Cleanup properly.

[forjonny]

The new Windows 10 control panel (I guess they call it that) has a cleanup under System>> Storage>> Configure Storage Sense>> Free Up Space Now.
I was told to only do this for a disk clean up and not go to the hard drive properties>> Disk Cleanup or Disk Cleanup >> Clean Up System files. Anyhow that's how I like to do it because I can watch it run.

So the other day on my PC I went to the disk clean up and Clean up System Files and ran it. It showed I had several gigs of Update stuff that I could of deleted. Anyhow I did not let it continue but instead went to the New Control Panel and ran the Storage Sense instead. I then went back to "hard drive System Clean up" and ran it again. This showed more files to delete. I figured it would be all zeros but it wasn't.

Which would be the proper way to run this disk clean up in anyone's opinion? Why doesn't the new Storage Sense clean everything out? So now we have two Control Panels and we have two Disk Clean ups.

Getting a little tired of it all. I work with clients that want answers and I have to answer them as best as I can. They look at me like I'm crazy, lying or don't know what I am talking about.

Anyhow I got two questions in this post so maybe someone will have an answer that I can deal with.

[halohalo]

I am using version 1607, so I will open the Command Prompt window and use DISM to analyze and cleanup Windows Update files.

[Tarun]

@forjonny Storage Sense / Free space now is the same as using the Disk Cleanup utility. You can turn Storage Sense on to automate how often it cleans unneeded files, which can be beneficial.

To answer your questions:

• It doesn't matter, actually. You can use either one and they both accomplish the same thing. The disk cleanup utility is most likely still there as it supports command line switches, which allows automating disk cleanup.
• Storage Sense does clean everything out, the only thing I've ever seen come back is a few KB worth of temp files for the browser.
• You have the new Settings and the old Control Panel. Both work just fine, though Microsoft is having people shift towards using Settings. Honestly Settings does a great job with everything and the search is very intuitive.

[forjonny]

But does Update Cleanup get cleaned out in Storage Sense? My guess is no. That's why I use Disk Cleanup and then click on Clean up system files. Nobody will answer this properly I have found. There must be a hidden society that can answer all questions.

[UCyborg]

This article says Storage Sense cleans dated Windows update temporary files, so maybe there's a certain age threshold in place.

You might still be able to run the cleaner from Settings app, just don't go through Storage Sense, rather click on Temporary files right after you open the Storage category, assuming whatever Windows 10 version you're dealing with has that (older versions don't). That should behave the same way as Disk Cleanup application.

So with older versions, there's no built-in alternative to the good ol' Disk Cleanup application.

With newer versions, things are improved in the Settings app, but, running the old Disk Cleanup still gives a better idea about what it's able to clean up. I'd have to test to be 100% certain, but it's possible that the Settings app just hides the items where there isn't anything to clean.

[forjonny]

Yes I did click on Temporary files and it brought up another screen with all the MB or GBs it also showed in Disk Cleanup. You can check them and Remove Files from this screen. I am doing that now. I will check Disk Cleanup to see if they were cleaned in the Clean Up System Files catagory as well. ---------Yes it did, just checked that and it killed a bunch of files there listed as Update Cleanup.

Tell me, you think the normal person is going to figure this out? I am a computer guy studying Windows 10 and I had to Google it and ask in Forums to find this out. I don't know why Microsoft thinks everybody in the universe knows this stuff, can find this stuff, even knows how to look for answers, even knows that there are two ways to cleanup these unwanted files. All people I deal with would have no clues about this.

KrAZy!