Is it possible to remove old windows updates. How to remove unnecessary Windows updates and free up tons of space

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Hi all! Often, operating system updates do not bring new features, but rather new problems. So, today we will talk about four ways to remove Windows 7 system patches.

Method 1 – Control Panel

This method is the most popular of all existing ones. So, to remove the Windows update, you need to do the following:

1) Go to the “Start” menu, and from there to the “Control Panel” section.

2) Next, switch to the “Programs” tab.

3) In the “Programs and Features” section, select “View installed updates”.

These actions can also be done through the “Run” menu. To do this, press the key combination e Win+R on your keyboard.

In the menu that appears you need to enter "wuapp"(without quotes) and press the Enter key

4) After this you will be taken to the “Update Center”. Here, at the very bottom of the page, is the “See” menu. also”, where we need to go. Then select “Installed updates”.

5) After this, you will see a list of all installed operating system updates, as well as a couple of components from Microsoft. In addition to the set of letters and numbers that are the names of the updates, you will see the date of their installation, as well as the “KB” identifier.

Based on this, we can understand that we do not have to comb the entire section in search of the desired update, but remembering the approximate date of the error, we need to find the update specifically for it and completely uninstall it.

6) Now you need to find the update that needs to be removed. If this is not an update, but some kind of system component, then you need to look for it in the “Microsoft Windows” block. After the required component is found, right-click on it and select the only option from the context menu - “Delete”.

Also, as an alternative, you can click on the desired LMB component, and then select “Delete” in the top toolbar.

7) Next, you will be shown a warning window where you will need to confirm your intentions. Press the “Yes” button and move on to the next step.

8) So, now the process of uninstalling the component will start.

9) When this process comes to an end, in most cases you will see a system message that prompts you to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

If you need an instant reboot, you should click on the “Reboot now” button. If there is no great urgency for this matter, then click on the “Restart later” button.

If you cancel the computer restart, the update will be completely removed only after the system is restarted.

10) Now that the system is restarted, all the directories we need will be completely erased from the computer.

This method is universal for removing almost any component from the “Installed updates” section.

1) First of all, you need to find the document you need in the menu. Right-click on it and select “Delete”, or use the corresponding key from the top toolbar.

2) Of course, this is where the differences begin, since the Uninstall Wizard interface will change depending on what you are going to uninstall. The only thing you need to do is follow the instructions of the removal wizard, with the help of which you can successfully erase the update from your computer.

By the way, if you have enabled automatic installation of updates, the components you uninstalled will soon be downloaded again, as the system recognizes their absence.

Actually, the only thing you can do is simply deactivate this function. Then only you will have the right to choose which update to install and which not.

Method 2 – Command Line

Through the command line in the Windows operating system, you can perform almost any operation. Uninstalling OS updates is no exception.

1) First of all, go to the “Start” menu and select “All Programs” there.

2) Next, go to the “Standard” section.

3) Right-click on the “Command Prompt” element and select the “Run as administrator” option in the context menu.

4) Now we will be taken to the command line section. You need to enter the following command into it:

wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:*******

Actually, as you already understood, instead of asterisks you need to enter the number of the previously installed update. If this number is unknown to you, you can look it up using the method that we described earlier.

So, for example, in our case, the name of the installed update looks like this - “KB4025341”. That is, the template we specified earlier will be
converted to this command:

wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:4025341

Once you have inserted this command, press the Enter key.

5) After this, the process of uninstalling the document will begin.

6) As in the previous method, a warning window will appear here in which you need to confirm your intentions. Click on the “Yes” button to continue the process.

7) After this, the system utility for removing updates will proceed to the final phase of this process.

8) Probably here, as in the previous method, in order to complete the removal procedure it will be necessary to restart the system. To do this, click on the “Restart now” button in a special dialog box, if it is displayed, of course.

In addition to this tool, you can use the entire set of tools that the system has. In order to find out which tool is responsible for what, you need to enter “wusa.exe /?” into the command line, and then press the Enter key.

Now you will be shown a complete list of tools that you can use not only when uninstalling operating system updates, but also when uninstalling any other component.

It is worth noting that not all of these tools will be able to help you in the process of removing updates. But, as an example, if you write the command

wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:4025341 /quiet

If you do this, the update will be removed without any system warnings popping up. If the system requests a system restart, it will be restarted automatically without your intervention.

Method 3 – Erasing the contents of the drive

It is worth noting that when the system installs updates, they are not all automatically added to system files at once. In the period from 1 to 10 days, these directories with updates can be stored on solid-state drives. Based on this, you can understand that the installers are constantly hanging as a dead weight in the memory of your drive, although the updates themselves have already been installed.

In addition, sometimes situations arise when a set of updates is already installed on the computer, but the user did not want to unpack it. After which, just as in the previous situation, they will simply be “dead weight”, by dropping which you can free up some space in the system.

Sometimes situations arise in which updates cannot be installed due to some system problems. In this situation, installers will not only “flounder” on the hard drive, but will also prevent the system from installing updates normally. One way or another, the update directory needs to be cleaned. To do this you need to do the following:

1) Go to the “Start” menu and from there switch to the “Computer” section.

2) After this, a section will open in which you can see all the hard drives that are installed on your computer. We need a disk with the operating system, in our case it is “C”. Right-click on it and go to the “Properties” menu.

3) Now switch to the “General” section and select “Disk Cleanup” there.

4) After this, the disk will be scanned and the system will find out what can be deleted and how much space can be freed up.

5) When the scan is completed, you will see a system message showing the amount of space that can be freed. Here we need to click on “Clean up system files”.

6) After this, the analysis of the hard drive will be launched again, only this time the system directories will also be taken into account when collecting information.

7) So, the scanning is completed. Now in the “Delete the following files” section all directories that can be deleted as unnecessary will be displayed.

All directories that can be deleted will have a check mark next to them. The necessary components will not have them. In order to correctly complete the removal of updates, we need to activate the following options in this section: “Cleaning Windows updates” and “Windows update log files”. After this, we start the uninstallation process by pressing the “OK” button.

8) After this, you will see a warning window, which will say that the deletion is irreversible and you will no longer be able to cancel this procedure. Here we should confirm our intentions by pressing the “Delete files” button.

9) So, now the process of uninstalling junk system files will begin. As soon as it completes, you should manually restart the system.

Method 4 – Uninstall downloaded updates using the command line

If you just want to clean the system of garbage that has accumulated during its operation, then the command line can help us here too. Only, like the previous method, this method can only help you get rid of installation files and cache files, but not roll back updates to system components.

1) First of all, you need to launch the command line. Scroll a little higher and you will see a description of the process of launching it in the second method. So, here we will need to write

net stop wuauserv

Then press the Enter key.

2) Now you need to enter a command here that will clear the system of cache files. This command looks like this:

ren %windir%SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.OLD

Then you need to press Enter again.

3) And the last command will restart the update service. It looks like this:

net start wuauserv

Press the Enter key one last time.

That's all. Afterwards, the cache will be cleared and some more space will be freed up on the system.

Method 5 - Manually deleting downloaded files

You can also remove components manually from the folder where they were downloaded.

To ensure that nothing interferes with the procedure, you need to temporarily disable the update service, as it can block the process of manually deleting files. Click “Start” and go to “Control Panel.”

Select "System and Security".

In the list of system tools, select “Services”.

You can go to the service management window without using the Control Panel. Call the Run utility by clicking Win+R. Enter:

Click OK.

The service management window opens. By clicking on the name of the “Name” column, arrange the service names in alphabetical order for ease of search. Find "Windows Update". Check this item and click “Stop Service”.

Now launch Explorer. Copy the following address into its address bar:

C:WindowsSoftwareDistribution

Press Enter or click the arrow to the right of the line.

A directory opens in Explorer containing several folders. We will be particularly interested in the “Download” and “DataStore” directories. The first folder stores the components themselves, and the second contains the logs.

Go to the "Download" folder. Select all its contents by pressing Ctrl+A and delete using the Shift+Delete combination.

It is necessary to use this particular combination because after pressing a single Delete key, the contents will be sent to the Recycle Bin, that is, they will actually continue to occupy a certain disk space. Using the Shift+Delete combination will perform a complete irreversible deletion.

True, you will still have to confirm your intentions in the miniature window that will appear after this by clicking the “Yes” button. The deletion will now be performed.

Not all Windows folders are created equal. Many users have already made this conclusion for themselves. Some folders in the system can take up a lot of space, but not always with the necessary data. If we have at least figured out the system snapshot folder (restore points), then not everyone knows how to approach the WinSxS folder. In this article, I'll tell you what this folder is, why it takes up so much space, and how to organize it.

Why is WinSxS so big?

There is nothing mysterious about the WinSxS folder. Windows sends it “snapshots” of system files that are affected by the next update. Hence the meaning of this folder - to ensure a system rollback after an update if it begins to work incorrectly or is unstable. The complaints about the WinSxS folder are related to the monstrous size, which is shown by hard drive examination tools, like .

But there is no mystery at all. The actual size of the WinSxS folder is much smaller - “hard links” are to blame.

"Hard link" - conquering the NTFS file system. In reality, there is only one file, but there can be many “hard links” to it. But they, from the point of view of the file manager, are completely separate files with the same size as the file being referenced. But in reality their size is zero.

When standard tools calculate the size of a WinSxS folder, they are told the files themselves without taking into account the fact that these are “hard links”. In reality, the size of the WinSxS folder is not so large and rarely reaches 15 GB. However, with large updates, of which there have been many recently, the size of this folder raises questions.

How to properly clean out the WinSxS folder?

The answer depends on the version of the operating system you are using.

Windows 7

In Windows 7, you should install SP1 or package number KB2852386. The fact is that the developers included cleaning this folder in the system disk cleanup utility. There this item is called “Cleaning Windows Updates”.

Old files are deleted in the following way. All files that relate to updates installed earlier than 30 days ago are deleted.

Windows 8

In Windows 8, the WinSxS folder has undergone small but important changes. Now it stores not just old files, but compressed old files. This significantly reduces the actual physical size of the folder.

Starting from Windows 8, you can view the actual size of WinSxS with the following command "Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore". To do this, you will need to call the “Command Line” (“cmd”) system utility as an administrator.

The standard disk cleanup tool here has always been able to clean up Windows updates, as described for Windows 7 SP1.

Windows 8.1 and 10

Windows 8.1 introduced an additional feature to remove all older versions of Windows components. This is done with the command “Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase”.

Attention! Use non-standard commands only if free space is simply catastrophically valuable. In all other cases, “disk cleanup” will give a completely satisfactory result. And system security will be higher due to a 30-day moratorium on removing updates.

Is it possible to remove updates? For many reasons, there is a need to uninstall Windows 7 updates. It often happens that after automatic installation of an update, one of the programs stops working, the equipment began to work worse due to overload, or errors began to appear.

The reasons can be varied: there are updates that directly make changes to the kernel of the Windows 7 operating system itself, which entails a failure of the drivers. There can be a lot of reasons and options. Of course, it is better not to touch the updates that are installed on your computer, they are usually useful for the operating system, but still, to prevent negative consequences, we will look at the main ways to remove them.

How to remove updates

Uninstalling an update through the control panel

If you need to uninstall updates in the latest versions of Windows 7, you can do this in the appropriate item in the Control Panel:

1. You need to go to the control panel and find the “Windows Update” item.

2. Your second step will be to find the “Installed updates” link.

4. You need to select Windows 7 updates, and click delete, after which you confirm the removal of the update.

After the removal is complete, the system will prompt you to restart your computer. This must be done so that the system is updated again and does not react to fragments from a remote update.

Uninstall update via command line

Windows has a special tool called “Offline Update Installer”. If you call it via the command line (start, run, cmd, Enter)

you can also uninstall the update from Windows 7. To do this, you need to use the following type of command: wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:2222222. In this command, kb:2222222 is the identification number of the update that you need to remove.

In conclusion, I will say that we have covered the basic principles and steps of uninstalling an update on your OS, but if you do not want to bother, and updates are not so important to you, you can try to completely disable automatic updates of Windows 7.

In October, Microsoft released a number of updates for users of its products, some of them led to, but there is one update that all Windows 7 fans have been waiting for for a very long time. We are talking about the update KB2852386(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2852386), which allows you to remove outdated updates (updates that have been superseded by newer updates) using a new option in the standard Windows 7 Disk Cleanup Wizard - Windows Cleanup Tool ( cleanmgr.exe) . This update is optional; it can be installed through the Windows Update service or by manually downloading it from the Microsoft website.

Let us remind you that in Windows 7, when installing any system update, system files are replaced with new ones, and their old versions are stored in the directory WinSxS(C:\Windows\WinSxS). Thanks to this approach, you can safely remove any system update at any time. However, this approach leads to the fact that over time, as new updates are installed, the WinSxS directory increases significantly in size (it turns out that the older the system is and the more updates are installed, the larger the size of the WinSxS folder), which cannot but worry users, especially happy owners of SSD drives and drives with a small system partition size. Previously, Windows 7 lacked a standard utility for deleting outdated update files, so to reduce the size of the WinSxS folder you had to resort to various tricks.

Note. In Windows 7/2008, it was possible to delete unused files that were left after installing SP1. This could be done using the following command from our favorite DISM utility: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

Naturally, after executing this command, it will become impossible to roll back the installation of Windows 7 SP 1.

Now, thanks to the updated version of the Windows 7 Cleanup Wizard, you can remove outdated Windows updates, which will significantly reduce the size of the WinSxS folder.

Requirements for installing update KB2852386

The update is intended only for
If you download the update yourself from the Microsoft website (the link is at the beginning of the article), you will be asked to run the Windows authentication utility (Genuine Windows Validation). When installing an update through the Update Installation Center, you will not have to perform manual validation.

How to clean the WinSxS folder in Windows 7 by removing outdated updates

Note. It is important to understand that after performing disk cleanup using this wizard, it will be impossible to uninstall updates that replaced deleted updates.

How to automate cleaning of the WinSxS folder

In the event that it is necessary to remove unused Windows 7 updates on many machines at once (don’t run around all of them and perform all these operations manually!), we will resort to simple automation.

To do this, we need to make certain changes to the registry and run the cleaning command on a schedule.

You need to add a DWORD value to the registry with the name StateFlags0011(in fact, the last two digits can be anything in the range from 0 to 65535, the main thing is to remember them, because we will use them in the future) and the value 2 to the registry branch

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Update Cleanup

Advice. The specified change to the registry can be made, for example, using group policies (Logon script, GPP, etc.).

All that remains is to use any automation tool (for example, using the schtasks, at, SCCM or logon script task scheduler) to execute the command:

Cleanmgr /sagerun:11

The specified command will start automatic removal of outdated Windows 7 updates and remove unused files from the WinSxS directory

Advice. It would be logical to run this update once a month, for example every first Monday of the month, i.e. before the next one.

What about Windows 8?

In Windows 8 and 8.1, the Windows Update Cleanup Wizard is a standard feature.

Windows Update is an important component of operating system security from external and internal threats. However, the central heating service is also subject to errors, which disrupts the natural progression of system improvements with updates. In such cases, the user needs to intervene in the system update process in order for the OS to continue to work like a clock.

Reasons to remove old updates

The reasons for deleting old updates can be very varied:

saving disk space;
low-quality (disturbing the operation of the system), outdated update;
update files were installed with an error, etc.

Each of the reasons stated is sufficient to interfere with the operation of the system in order to debug it.

As my experience shows, in operating systems that have been running for six months or more, it is almost necessary to remove old updates. Firstly, updates clutter up the system disk, and the more space there is, the better Windows works. Secondly, updates can overlap each other, which causes file paths to become confusing, which also incorrectly affects the system’s performance.

Is it possible to remove updates?

Of course, updates can be removed, but with some nuances:

the update must be removed correctly. Regular deletion of files will lead to undesirable consequences, including the crash of the operating system;
Not all updates can be removed. Some, especially those related to Windows Defender, are vital to the secure operation of the system;
You need to be careful when choosing which update to remove. It is quite possible that it is not old and unnecessary. This means that the system will install the update again.

Proper removal of updates is the key to system performance

Removing old updates

If it comes to removing irrelevant updates, the user has a whole range of options to complete the uninstallation procedure. You don't have to deny yourself anything: the command line, the good old update log, and even the rarely used disk cleanup tool. The uninstallation process itself is similar to uninstalling a simple program, with only one exception - after that you need to restart the computer.

Removal via "Control Panel"

The interface of the “Control Panel” (CP) element is increasingly reduced in capabilities with each update of Windows 10. However, it is impossible to completely replace it with the “Settings” of the computer, and most applets are still in full working order. Uninstalling programs and updates is no exception.

Some updates, especially Office service packs, do not require a restart. But my experience shows that if you do not restart your computer immediately and access deleted files, you may experience some freezes and slowdowns of the computer.

Removal via Settings Windows 10

The Settings environment also includes the ability to remove programs, components, and system updates.

Uninstall via command line

The Command Line tool allows you to do almost everything with the operating system - from restarting processes and the system as a whole, to uninstalling programs and updates.

Removal through a third-party program

The modern software market offers almost a full range of “substitutes” for standard utilities from Microsoft. Removing programs and components is no exception. Such products are often more convenient in terms of interface and functionality compared to Windows utilities. One such program is Revo Uninstaller.

Revo Uninstaller is a program that replaces the Uninstall Programs tool.

Through system disk cleanup

The only "true" way to remove really old old and unnecessary updates is with the system's Disk Cleanup utility. In this case, the system itself will automatically determine which updates can be removed.

The process of removing updates is very long and should definitely not be interrupted. The case shown above, with the deletion of 2.66 GB of update files, lasted more than an hour.

How to clear the update cache, fix the error of uninstalled or stuck updates in Windows 10

Often, in cases where the Internet blinks, power surges occur, and in some others, downloading updates may occur with errors. In such situations, the operation of the update service is disrupted; it tries to access files that contain an error, which causes the whole process to go wrong. Updates cannot be installed, or they can, but at the same time they carry an error, which can affect the performance of the entire system. User intervention is required to troubleshoot.

How to remove the update icon

Users of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 will sooner or later have an icon appear on the notification panel that will say that the system can be updated to Windows 10. In fact, this means that sooner or later the update will happen almost forcibly, against the will of the user. If you don't want this to happen, you just need to uninstall one update.

Prohibition of installing individual updates

Microsoft has provided a special mechanism for uninstalling certain updates. This feature is not particularly replicated to ensure that users install absolutely all expected updates.

Problems uninstalling updates

As my extensive experience with Tens updates shows, there are practically no problems with deletions. The only thing that can harm the system is the removal of current and necessary updates. This will lead to undesirable consequences and incorrect operation of system files. Therefore, it is very important to delete only old and unnecessary updates and to properly clear the update cache.

The system is subject to so-called external risks, when software failures cannot correctly perform their tasks. Problems with removal in the vast majority of cases occur in two cases:

when system files are damaged by viruses;
when system or update files are damaged by disk errors.

First of all, if any operating system errors occur, you need to check your computer for viruses and malware. To do this, you need to use more than one program, this will increase the possibility of detection.

After checking, you need to scan system files, as well as the file system.

Open the command line as administrator.
We enter two commands one by one:
- sfc /scannow - checks system files and, if necessary, restores missing elements;
- chkdsk C: /f /r - checks the disk for errors and, if necessary, corrects damaged sectors.
We definitely wait until the process is completed. Each running utility runs for quite a long time, sometimes more than one hour.

System rollback after unsuccessful updates

System updates often affect core system files. Therefore, if there are possible failures during the update, important components of the OS may be so damaged that Windows simply stops loading. In order not to lose important data, it is recommended to regularly create system restore points. This tool will help you get your OS back up and running if updates, viruses, or disk errors cause Windows to crash.

In order to use the restore point tool when the OS is not working, you need to have a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive.

In my personal experience, sometimes a restore point is not enough to get the system back to working order. Personally, I think it’s better to accept it and do a clean installation of the system from the latest distribution, which already has all the necessary updates installed. If the update became so crooked that the operating system crashed, there is no guarantee that re-installation will not lead to the same result.

Video: how to launch a restore point

Clearing the update log

The update log contains information about all attempts to install updates, drivers and programs by the system. Essentially this is useless information that can also be deleted.

It is worth clarifying that the above instructions will only delete the update log, that is, information about them. The updates themselves will be in perfect order, their list with the ability to delete each individual update will still be present in the Control Panel applet.

Video: How to clear Windows 10 update history

It is very easy to remove a particular OS update. You just need to not deviate from the instructions above and not delete anything unnecessary.