Upgrading Windows can be fraught with problems, annoyances and niggles, some more serious than others. Given Microsoft’s track record, it should come as news to no one that the recently released Windows 11 24H2 update has a selection of issues.
One of the more curious quirks is the discovery by many people that the update fails to clean up after itself properly. An astonishing 8.63 GB is the amount of undeletable data is what many who have installed the Windows 11 2024 Update find is left behind. So what to do?
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It is very common for significant updates to Windows to lave behind unnecessary junk. This is by design, but there has always been the option to reclaim the space occupied by the “copies of all installed updates from Windows Update, even after installing newer versions of updates” Microsoft insists on leaving behind.
But this has not proven to be the case for Windows 11 24H2 adopters. As reported by The Register, there are many complaints from users in the Feedback Hub that upgrading leaves behind 8.63 GB of files. This would not be an issue if said data could be deleted in the way that has always been available. But in this instance, there appears to be no way to recover this space as neither the Disk Cleanup tool nor Settings are able to delete the data in question.
Microsoft is yet to comment on the matter. While it is technically possible to manually delete files to claw back the occupied disk space, this is not recommended because of the potential for things to go awry if the wrong files are deleted.
The Register speculates that the extra space could be used up due to a change in the way Microsoft delivers update. Checkpoint cumulative updates were announced as a way of reducing update sizes, and this 8.63 GB could be the first checkpoint to facilitate this. But until Microsoft says something, everyone is left guessing.
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