Windows 11 24H2 disk space hoarding a 'reporting error' Microsoft has confirmed that the mysterious missing storage on Windows 11 24H2 devices is due to a "reporting error" in the operating system's cleanup tool. Many Windows 11 24H2 users, this writer included, saw a chunk of disk space occupied by "Windows Update Cleanup" after running the Disk Cleanup tool. Efforts to reclaim …
So they say "in the initial run". Somehow I doubt that none of the people who ran the tool and saw that didn't try just running it again and see that now it shows the space was released, or actually look at their disk usage and see the size reduced by that amount. I wonder if any of them tried a tool like Wiztree that can dig into even protected folders to show how much space is actually being used in folders like System Volume Information or the updates cache.
Microsoft may be claiming it's a "reporting error" but based on the way the new Checkpoint Updates seem to work, the previous updates WILL be retained and using up space because otherwise it would have to redownload them every time a new update is released (the way we had to download a Service Pack plus every update released after that, until the next Service Pack or Cumulative Update that included them all), meaning your updates would take longer and longer to download each time. The only way to avoid that is if they also have a consolidated package that can be downloaded instead, where they've already patched in those binary differentials, for every release, which would increase their own storage usage and effort. If they aren't going to change the Disk Cleanup tool to ignore those cached updates, or perhaps list them as a separate option to be removed with a note about the consequences, their own tools will be eliminating the benefit of Checkpoint Updates AND making updates worse for people.
Of course my Windows 10 system is showing 3.95GB of used space right now, so it's not like hoarding space for no reason is anything new. But my Win11 laptop hasn't been turned on for a couple of weeks, and with all the problem reports I'm afraid to do so unless I disable wireless long enough to disable the update service until I can perform a backup.
* It was a math error. Microsoft's response: snarky words from MS management to the relevant dev team.
* It was a supposed-to-be secret data store for Recall, at the request of some TLA(s). Microsoft's response: (privately) "Shit! We've been found out!!" (Publicly) "It was a math error. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! An unpaid intern made an unauthorized change and has been removed from their post. There is no problem; you are doing your sums wrong."
It's usually not quite that egregious, though. I don't know what restrictions have previously resulted in it not being able to delete things, but most likely it's that the tool just reads folder sizes without checking whether the OS is going to prevent removal of things that are "in use" or somehow reserved due to a dependency. Now that it's going to be tens of gigs (eventually), rather than just several hundred MB to maybe 2 gigs, they're realizing they fucked up by not having some way to restrict the tool from displaying amounts that can't be removed. So it is a "reporting error" from that perspective, but it has always been present and has accidentally exposed the downside to Checkpoint Updates.
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