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
    2022-10-01T18:41:24+00:00

    Anyone downloaded 22H2, did it solve this issue ?

    I upgraded to 22H2 via Windows Update and the problem is gone

    After doing the update you get "Remove Previous Windows Installation" option in the cleanup, today the first update arrived after removing the previous installation. Installed update, restarted and ran the cleanup after the update, it successfully removed 173MB. So this bug is fixed in 22H2

    This is still a hit and miss. One of my machines installed 22H2, but it is still showing over 4 GB of update files being stored. The removal option was checked, but it didn't clear that much out.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-01T17:14:57+00:00

    I also upgraded to 22H2 and it works fine now. I had no problem with the CPU use but I have 16 GBS of ram. Mine stayed around 2 to 4 percent.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-01T16:48:54+00:00

    Also upgraded to 22H2 on all machines and MS have changed the disk clean-up which takes longer but has resolved issue. CPU at 90%+ on all machines while clean-up is actioned. Note: click on drive and select Three dots at the top bar and choose Clean-up from drop down menu.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-10-01T13:21:24+00:00

    Anyone downloaded 22H2, did it solve this issue ?

    I upgraded to 22H2 via Windows Update and the problem is gone

    After doing the update you get "Remove Previous Windows Installation" option in the cleanup, today the first update arrived after removing the previous installation. Installed update, restarted and ran the cleanup after the update, it successfully removed 173MB. So this bug is fixed in 22H2

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-09-22T08:13:39+00:00

    I have updated to Windows 11 22H2 via mounting the iso and installing/keeping files, etc. and the problem went away for me as well, although i had to manually download and install the cumalative update that became available afterwards which wouldnt otherwise install.

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