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
    2022-06-15T06:52:31+00:00

    I have the same exact problem, after spending multiple hours using multiple disk images which I back up once a week and keep four weeks of there are actually two updates that cause this issue. I installed the updates in a different order and went from 2.3GB in update cleanup not wanting to "clean" to only 373MB. The two updates that cause this issue are.

    2022-05 Cumulative Update Preview for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 11 for x64 (KB5013889

    2022-05 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 11 for x64 (KB5013628)

    It doesn't matter which one you install first they both cause the windows update cleanup under disk cleanup to persist after a cleaning.

    From what I think it is just reporting this as persisting even though it does clean it up. After each trial I would do the cleanup and it would take the time during windows update cleanup that it usually does on first run. All subsequent runs it just rushes through the update cleanup like there is nothing there. My actual diskspace is correct, and Powershell cleanup shows it being cleaned.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-07T19:43:48+00:00

    I still am thinking that the files are being removed, but that the reporting that Windows does of the size is incorrect - Windows does not recognize that the updates are removed. I will double check this the next time a large update comes in, probably next Tuesday, but the last time one did, my File Explorer reported that I had gained a couple of GB after running Disk Cleanup even though Disk Cleanup and Settings - Storage did not acknowledge that anything was removed.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-07T13:29:23+00:00

    Just current update:

    1. MS support obviously has no solution regarding this problem. Its only proposed solution is reset or re-install the entire system. This is a typical situation in a case when a suitable solution is not known.
    2. The problem progressively escalates with other consequent MS Windows updates of any kind. The size of un-removable "Windows update cleanup" is still rising.

    So far, no reliable solution known... :(

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-06T14:23:33+00:00

    So far, you seem to be absolutely right ... :(

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-06-06T14:13:48+00:00

    Microsoft doesn't seem to think this is a problem.

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