Windows 11 Disk Cleanup will not Remove Windows Update Cleanup

Glad that I can pose a challenge (not really). I tried the safe mode thing back when this first started.

I'm beginning to think that your first impression was correct, even if it wasn't the correct update. Something changed my settings on these computers as I found they are now sharing settings which I had turned off. All three now have group policies which are identical and not available in the group policy editor. All three indicate the same for what is available to remove in Windows Update, but none will actually remove that. However, I'm beginning to think that the files have been removed, but the size which Disk Cleaner sees is incorrect.

If this doesn't sort out in the next few days, I'm going to set a week aside to take down the network and do a clean install of Windows 11 and all software on all three machines.

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

This is really a very strange problem. I think it may be caused by some programs modifying the current system configuration file. You can try to enter safe mode to see if it can be deleted normally because safe mode can do many things that the system cannot do when running.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Thanks, Derrick, but I've gone through all of those operations and everything is fine as far as services are concerned. I've gone through the Windows Update reset procedures that have been posted in the Microsoft documents, including the manual ones to reset everything and there is no change in this. Something has changed. My machines (all three Windows 11 ones) have all suddenly stopped automatically installing Defender definition updates yesterday and, now, all three of them have a group policy set to not automatically install, but to just notify. I went through all of the group policy options and that one is not present. This is a peer to peer network, not on a domain, and things are going wacky all at once. I may end having to do a clean install of all three machines though I really don't want to. If that's the case, I will have to wait a month or so to get the time to do that.

If you have any more ideas, I'm open. Thanks, again.

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

From your screenshot, it seems that there are no more updates to uninstall. I found similar questions for you in the forum. You can check whether it is effective.

Disk cleanup don't cleans Windows Update Cleanup. - Microsoft Community

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Thanks, Derek. That is interesting and it may be the reason for the problem on all three computers. All are showing 1.93 GB as ready to be removed with well over 2 GB as the total space to be recovered. Unfortunately, I do not see KB3194798 on the installation history and the uninstall update option does not include it either.

Edit added:

I've done a bit of research and it appears that the KB3194798 was released in October, 2016, for Windows 10. Is it possible that is not the correct name for the update you describe?