Cleaning WinSxS- doesn't work

Question

I've tried the cmd command and Windows cleaner with elevated privileges, but neither has cleaned the WinSxS folder. It says that the task has been completed in the CMD, but WinSxS is still 14 GB. I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

Answer 1

Windows 7's KB 2852386 update, "Update is available that enables you to delete outdated Windows updates by using a new option in the Disk Cleanup wizard in Windows 7 SP1", now allows Disk Cleanup to clean up the WinSxS folder. From KB 2852386's Knowledge Article page:

This article describes an update for the Disk Cleanup wizard in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

This update adds a new plugin to the Disk Cleanup wizard. After you install this update, you can use the Windows Update Cleanup option to delete Windows updates that you no longer need.

Notes

• 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• To enable you to roll back to previous updates, updates are stored in the WinSxS store even after they are superseded by later updates. Therefore, after you run the Disk Cleanup wizard, you may be unable to roll back to a superseded update. If you want to roll back to a superseded update that the Disk Cleanup wizard deletes, you can manually install the update.

More info at KB 2852386's Knowledge Article page

Answer 2

The cleaning command only cleans the files used by Windows Update on upgrading to Windows SP1 (see this for more information). At any rate, the difference in size before and after is relative for most users, but it ranges about the 1GB mark.

There are good reasons not to wipe the wiwsxs folder completely. Quoting from Wikipedia:

From Vista onward the operating system also uses WinSxS for its core components.

Answer 3

The only way to cleanup the WinSxS folder is to check all installed Updates and look which updates are replaced by newer updates and remove those old updates. In Windows 8 Microsoft added an automatic cleanup which does the check for you and removes the updates.