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
    2022-09-02T15:49:19+00:00

    Thanks for the update. Now I know for sure I will not be trying that. In a worst case I will put up with the problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-09-02T15:38:25+00:00
    1. Download Windows 11 (microsoft.com)
    2. How to perform repair upgrade in Windows 11 - Microsoft Community
    3. After that ... perform standard update procedure on your Windows 11

    That worked on two of my machines, but not the third one. The repair went fine, but the system still reports the multi-gig storage of Windows Updates. I figure that one will need a clean reinstall, but I'm not going through that mess for this problem.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-09-02T13:25:25+00:00

    Very true

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-09-02T13:09:41+00:00

    Big problems sometimes start as a small few GB's trouble. But, in this specific case, you are probably right :), ISO upgrade of 7 PC's was a long-run.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-09-02T12:52:21+00:00

    Seems like a lot of trouble just to get rid of a few GB's.

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