Here is some good news for windows 7 SP1 users and maybe for VDI admins running windows 7 desktops in their VDI environments. Windows update cleanup plugin allows to uninstall outdated windows patches and some disk space on the root folder, without messing up with the WinSxS folder.
This comes as an additional option to the Disk cleanup wizard and allows selecting the unneeded updates which are laying idle in the windows system folder. To be able to leverage this new add-on, you must install a Microsoft patch windows update cleanup showing up on the list. If your computer does not have the update installed on your computer go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2852386 to download and manually install it. After applying all the patches on windows 7 it can benefit some potential good disk space saving.
Quote from Microsoft’s KB page:
- The Windows Update Cleanup option is available only when the Disk Cleanup wizard detects Windows updates that you do not need on the computer.
- To enable you to roll back to previous updates, updates are stored in the WinSxS store even after they are superseded by later updates. Therefore, after you run the Disk Cleanup wizard, you may be unable to roll back to a superseded update. If you want to roll back to a superseded update that the Disk Cleanup wizard deletes, you can manually install the update.
The patch applies to all versions of Windows 7 SP1:
- Windows 7 Enterprise
- Windows 7 Home Basic
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Windows 7 Professional
- Windows 7 Starter
- Windows 7 Ultimate
The windows 8 and 8.1 on the other hand have this option enabled by default, so it should appear in the cleanup wizard in case there are some old patches to remove.
You can check that by running the cleanmgr command through Start > execute. (Or rather Windows + R)
