Delete Temporary Windows Installation Files In Windows 10

There are many ways out there to free up a significant amount of free space on a PC running Windows 10 without modifying settings that might affect overall Windows performance.

With default settings, Windows 10 automatically downloads and installs updates when they are rolled out by Microsoft. Two major updates (November Update & Anniversary Update) so far have been released for Windows 10.

Whenever you install a major update for Windows 10 or upgrade to the latest build of Windows 10, you need to manually delete some files and folders to regain lost disk space due to the update. You likely know that you can free up GBs of space by deleting Windows.old folder as well as deleting old Windows 10 drivers.

In this guide, we will see how to delete Temporary Windows installation files to free up disk space on a PC running Windows 10.

Temporary Windows installation files may not be present on your PC if you recently used a third-party disk cleaning utility or if you recently performed a clean install of Windows 10.

Clear temporary Windows installation files in Windows 10

The temporary Windows installation files are usually created when you upgrade Windows 10 to a new major build. For instance, temporary Windows installation files are created when you upgrade to Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

Note that temporary Windows installation files are different from temporary files. Deleting temporary files from the Temp folder will not delete temporary Windows installation files.

Step 1: Open up This PC or Quick Access, right-click on your Windows 10 drive (“C” usually it is) and click Properties.

Step 2: Click the Disk Cleanup button to run the Disk Cleanup tool. The Disk Cleanup tool might take up to a few minutes to show files and folders that can be deleted to free up disk space.

Step 3: When you see the following dialog, click the Clean up system files button. This time, the Disk Cleanup utility will look for system files that can be cleared to regain lost disk space.

Step 4: Look for the entry named Temporary Windows installation files, check the box next to it, and then click OK button. Click Yes button if you see the confirmation or warning dialog to continue deleting temporary Windows installation files.

How much space did you regain by deleting temporary Windows installation files?