Windows 11 Disk Cleanup will not Remove Windows Update Cleanup

Anonymous
2022-05-16T16:04:16+00:00

I recently ran disk cleanup on Windows 11 Pro to clear about 2 gig of Windows Update files. This has always worked in the past, but, now, it acts like it's working except that the process moves much too quickly compared to how it used to work. If I run it again, it says that the same amount of space is still present and available to be deleted.

I have tried all of the posted (here, in Microsoft docs, and elsewhere on the net) to try to resolve this issue, but nothing has worked. Those include renaming the Software distribution folder, rebooting and removing the old one, checking services to make sure the proper ones are running, running SFC and DISM and going through the Microsoft published process of manually resetting the Windows Update and cleanup systems.

I have a four computer peer to peer network. Three computers are on Windows 11 and one on Windows 10. The Windows 10 computer is working properly, but all three of the Windows 11 machines are exhibiting this problem. Is this something that Microsoft is aware of or is it a temporary thing because of the problems with the recent updates?

Any suggestions are welcome, but I have tried all of the things previously posted about this problem. Thanks.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-08-09T12:34:56+00:00

    I have the same issue. I have a laptop and a desktop running Windows 11, both of which still show Windows Update data after running Windows Update Disk Clean up. Very strange.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-08-08T16:37:46+00:00

    All suggestions thus far do not solve the reported problem. I guess we'll just have to wait until Microsoft diagnoses and fixes it.

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  3. Ramesh 181.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-08-08T16:32:32+00:00

    My mistake! It was meant for the TEMP folder issue as described here. Posted it here wrongly. Sorry for the confusion! :(

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-08-08T16:22:57+00:00

    The only save, fully functional and reliable solution of this problem is complete Windows 11 upgrade via actual Windows11 iso file with keeping of user data and apps.

    After that everything works again well!!! So, problem is solved!!!

    A complete Windows upgrade is by no means a "solution" to this problem. Let's call it a "workaround" until Microsoft gets ready to fix this annoying problem once and for all (whenever that will be).

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-08-08T16:20:21+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    Something is resetting the DISM scratch directory's (or the files within) last accessed date/time, which is causing the issue. By default, Disk Cleanup doesn't touch %TEMP% files that have been accessed within the last 7 days.

    As a workaround, you can force Disk Cleanup to clear all files in the %TEMP% folder regardless of the "last accessed" timestamp.

    See Why Does Disk Cleanup Leave Behind Temp Files for a registry edit and additional information.

    Thanks for your suggestion. I've tried that already, but it didn't work.

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