Windows 7: Disk Cleanup does not delete windows update files

Hi!

The windows directory on my installation has gotten extremely bloated and I would like to free up some space. The Disk Cleanup utility nicely offers to free up 7 GBs of windows update data. However, when I run it, I only see a progress bar for a while and then it disappears. The amount of free space is the same. When I run Disk Cleanup again, it offers to free up the same 7 GBs again. I have tryed running it in safe mode, but the results are same. The user running the Disk Cleanup utility has administrator privileges. The utility itself gives no error messages whatsoever.

Any ideas on what might be causing this behaviour and how to solve it?

Did you check clean up system files?
If that does not work, download the free Ccleaner, it works even better than disc cleanup

Disk Cleanup many times will not complete unless you reboot.

Here is a nice little tutorial by Bare Foot Kid.

Disk Cleanup : Extended

Another one by Brink.

Disk Cleanup - Open and Use

I agree, CCleaner is great, however I'm not sure if I dare to use it for deleting windows update data yet. I have tryed rebooting after running the disk cleanup utility, no results. I also tryed running the command as administrator in the 2nd tutorial and cleaning windows update files then, made no change.

Go to search
type %temp%
Then delete the ones you are comfy with
To be more comfy make a system restore point first
You can make a system restore before Ccleaner, too. Which is the way I would go.

I am really only talking about the windows update data here, not temporary files etc. It seems CCleaner has removed the feature to remove old windows update data all in all.

Why do you think that Windows Update files were not cleaned? If it's because you expect to see an option showing how much space will be freed - you won't see that. You need to run disk cleanup extended (with all required options checked other than Windows Update) then make a note of free space. Then run disk cleanup extended again to include only Windows Update. Then you need to compare space before and after cleanup.

Actually it does show me about 7GB of disk space will be cleaned. When I run the tool later, it still shows me 7 GB of space can be freed. Clearly it's doing nothing.

I made some screenshots just to clarify what the issue is since there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding, I hope this will clear it up.

So you are running disk cleanup as admin correct? (Right click options)

Try Steps 1,2 & 3 here:

Disk Cleanup : Extended

A reboot is required after cleanup.