Windows 10 / 11 post WU installation cleanup script

Almighty1 said:

It's a notebook and 1TB is the largest offered but what I am curious about is what's taking up that space. I mean before, I even had 20GB of ISO's that I deleted and it actually had less space after taking out the ISO's. I'm going to be upgrading to probably 4TB SSD anyways.

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Treesize maybe?

I use WinDirStat, but TreeSize is another good choice.

Hey, folks, I'm updating the first post with links to a couple of posts I made later on wrt alternative implementations of these commands.

Thank you again all who have read the OP (and particularly those who read and replied in the thread), my daily driver is now the SysMinion app.

Almighty1 said:

It's a notebook and 1TB is the largest offered but what I am curious about is what's taking up that space. I mean before, I even had 20GB of ISO's that I deleted and it actually had less space after taking out the ISO's. I'm going to be upgrading to probably 4TB SSD anyways.

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Since it is you, I won't ask if you secure deleted / emptied out the Recycle Bin.

Curious, though, have you checked to see if Windows is regularly performing `trim` on your SSD? Also, being a notebook, I'm assuming things like Sleep and particularly hibernation are enabled? Hibernation especially will take gobs of space, theoretically equivalent to your installed RAM, but I'm not sure if that is actually a hard limit or not.... So that might be a place to look at as well.

johnlgalt said:

Since it is you, I won't ask if you secure deleted / emptied out the Recycle Bin.

Curious, though, have you checked to see if Windows is regularly performing `trim` on your SSD? Also, being a notebook, I'm assuming things like Sleep and particularly hibernation are enabled? Hibernation especially will take gobs of space, theoretically equivalent to your installed RAM, but I'm not sure if that is actually a hard limit or not.... So that might be a place to look at as well.

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Recycle Bin is empty. Yes, Hibernation is enabled and Sleep is enabled, Hibernation is taking 26GB of space and so is the Pagefile. Is the Hibernation file still supposed to be big if the system does not have a hibernation session saved or does it get big because of a hibernation session that was never resumed?
One thing I forgot to mention was that on March 30, 2025, I went from 32GB of memory to 64GB of memory and according to this, since I am using a system managed pagefile, that would mean the pagefile can grow in size:

I am asking about the Hibernation because basically on April 2, 2025 until May 28, 2025, from the point at the POST screen where Windows has the spinning circle, the system can appear to completely go back to the POST screen anywhere from 5 seconds to a few minutes like a majority of the time without warning and maybe one out of every 5 of those, it will be an hour or up to 4 hours and if I am lucky, it would work fine like it did from April 2, 2025 all the way until April 20, 2025 for about 2 weeks straight. Then eventually in mid 2025, it gotten worse and I never gotten more than 4-5 hours maximum which was also when I first started seeing the space go down when I deleted the 20GB worth of space manually with shift-delete so it doesn't even reach the recycle bin. Then on May 28, 2025 - while I was in front of the machine, it did the same restart issue without warning but never turned back on. I kept thinking it was the CMOS battery going bad because when I upgraded the memory, as soon as the battery is connected, the system powered on which is not normal which also happened when I disconnected the battery to swap the 2 x 32GB Memory modules around in I think late April 2025 for the second time.

I was still waiting for the CMOS battery to arrive. Anyways, on May 28, 2025 - it began flashing a one amber and 2 or 3 white LED which won't go off and according to Dell's documentation, that means CPU Failure. When the CMOS battery did arrive on May 29, 2025 - I opened the machine and this machine has the motherboard upside down so the CPU/GPU is on the bottom side and basically it appears a capacitor burned from the bottom side and also burned some other electronics piece on the other side of the board including part of the plastic which the F5 key on the keyboard sits on so basically I was down for a few weeks until Dell shipped me a new motherboard with a new CPU and new GPU. The original was a Intel i7-8750H 2.2Ghz and the new one is a Intel i9-8950HK 2.9Ghz for the CPU and the GPU was always a NVidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4GB and the system has been stable ever since the new motherboard was put in. I do not have a working Safe Mode for Windows because it appears my in place repair install using Windows built-in repair install via Windows Update in May 2025 resulted in a non-working or corrupted WinRE file while the everything else is fine from DISM and SFC.

But anyways, the reason I was asking about the Hibernation File is that I think in one of the sessions, it actually hibernated because of a power outage during May 2025 but I never resumed the session as when I powered on again, it actually did a full boot and not resume from hibernation as unlike the later, it actually loaded everything like a reboot would instead of just showing everything as is before it hibernated. I don't use hibernation as the only time is when there is a power outage. So I was curious, if the system has hibernation enabled, is the hibernation file which is hiberfil.sys suppose to be 26GB of size or is it supposed to be smaller?

One other thing I should mention is that I no longer had a few of the other issues like byutv.org freezing EDGE and Chrome browsers and machine which I discovered in September 2024 and my mouse no longer slows down multiple times per hour only when the Mouse Control Panel is running but that problem fixed itself sometime in May 2025 but system no longer lags like it did before even when it's CPU thermal throttling which had been a problem even when the system was new in 2019.

And the reason I know what the remaining free space is, is because of Hard Disk Sentinel Pro's window as right now, it has 16GB free but just 6 hours ago, it had 43GB free with the current uptime being 4 days and 8 hours so I am sure after rebooting, the free space will go back to atleast 43GB.

So it appears both the pagefile and hibernation is supposed to be bigger with 64GB compared to when it was 32GB which might explain why the space is disappearing as pagefile is supposed to be atleast 64GB in size.

Hiberfil.sys on June 19, 2025 and now is still 26.7GB in size
Pagefile.sys on June 19, 2025 was 26GB in size but now 40GB in size.

My concern is more trying to fix the WinRE as Windows Update could not find the Repair version and ofcourse I don't have enough space to build a new Windows Beta Insider ISO from UUPDump even though my system is still updating to the most current builds via Windows Update. So I guess I will upgrade to a bigger SSD first before I will even think of that.

I just did more reading and apparently, hiberfil.sys will be 40% of RAM size by default so what was once 12.8GB based on 1024MB per 1GB at 32GB is now 25.6GB at 64GB and the system pagefile obviously will grow bigger in size as well.

As a test you could disable hibernation (Powercfg -h off) and that also disables fast startup. See how it runs. You can always enable it back again if you use hibernate.
If you use system restore use the slider to select max usage.

I stopped using hibernate some time back as it takes almost as long as a clean boot, at least on my machine. I use sleep and I have a UPS that will trigger a shutdown if power is lost. Sleep recovers in a fraction of the time as hibernate, and it leaves me in the same state as using hibernate. Yes, I have NVMe gen 4 drives that clock in at 6500MB/s, so storage speed shouldn't be a problem.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I stopped using hibernate some time back as it takes almost as long as a clean boot, at least on my machine. I use sleep and I have a UPS that will trigger a shutdown if power is lost. Sleep recovers in a fraction of the time as hibernate, and it leaves me in the same state as using hibernate. Yes, I have NVMe gen 4 drives that clock in at 6500MB/s, so storage speed shouldn't be a problem.

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Hibernate is faster because I don't have to wait for all the startup things to load and then manually run somethings after logging in. The startup items takes way longer in 24H2 as CCleaner which is usually the last thing that loads is approximately 20 minutes after logging in than before but I don't use Hibernate or even sleep mode, the only time Hibernate is used is when the power goes out and the notebook battery completely drains. So sleep mode is faster because it doesn't do the power on, POST and then booting part which Hibernate does but Hibernate also saves time in the post login part where everything can take 20 minutes to load even though I can use the system within a minute or two after logging in.

Almighty1 said:

Hibernate is faster because I don't have to wait for all the startup things to load and then manually run somethings after logging in. The startup items takes way longer in 24H2 as CCleaner which is usually the last thing that loads is approximately 20 minutes after logging in than before but I don't use Hibernate or even sleep mode, the only time Hibernate is used is when the power goes out and the notebook battery completely drains. So sleep mode is faster because it doesn't do the power on, POST and then booting part which Hibernate does but Hibernate also saves time in the post login part where everything can take 20 minutes to load even though I can use the system within a minute or two after logging in.

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Holy cow! 20 minutes? All my startup programs are running stable after a couple minutes.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Holy cow! 20 minutes? All my startup programs are running stable after a couple minutes.

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Yes, I just restarted and had 47GB of free space which is now down to 32GB. CCleaner apparently had the process started 12 minutes earlier before it actually showed up with the prompt asking to run as Admin.

Almighty1 said:

Yes, I just restarted and had 47GB of free space which is now down to 32GB. CCleaner apparently had the process started 12 minutes earlier before it actually showed up with the prompt asking to run as Admin.

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Gee, I end up with around 47GB available when all the smoke settles, and that's with Thunderbird and Firefox running.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Gee, I end up with around 47GB available when all the smoke settles, and that's with Thunderbird and Firefox running.

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I kept a lot of the nvidia drivers which is close to 1GB a piece... Probably need to delete some of the older versions. It's actually 23.2GB. I have both Chrome Beta and Chrome Dev running, each with 71 tabs. There is something wrong with my Chrome Dev with Gmail so I am running the same tabs on Chrome Beta for now.

Your processor running at 50% alone is terrifying, when it is not actively doing a lot. I personally abhor CCleaner, and other cleaning software like that, but I won't tell you you shouldn't use it - only ask why you have to have it running as a process all the time?

Definitely turn off hibernation, reboot and turn it on again, I suspect it needs to recalibrate itself for the new RAM that you have installed.

But, more to the point - I thought you said you now have 64 GB installed? That screenshot says you only have 48 GB installed, (though it does say 74%, so that might indicate it is supposed to be 64 GB, which adds up numerically, but the report of 48 GB is bothersome, especially since your onboard GPU is only a 1050, and I don't think it would be allocated 16 GB), so you might want to do some research on either the replacement motherboard Dell sent you, or else the replacement RAM that you bought, because something doesn't seem right there (and maybe it is just whatever software that is reporting that value).

johnlgalt said:

Your processor running at 50% alone is terrifying, when it is not actively doing a lot. I personally abhor CCleaner, and other cleaning software like that, but I won't tell you you shouldn't use it - only ask why you have to have it running as a process all the time?

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I was thinking the same thing when I saw that status! My processor is screaming along at a lofty 4%, and I was wondering what it was doing anyway.

johnlgalt said:

But, more to the point - I thought you said you now have 64 GB installed? That screenshot says you only have 48 GB installed, so you might want to do some research on either the replacement motherboard Dell sent you, or else the replacement RAM that you bought, because something doesn't seem right there (and maybe it is just whatever software that is reporting that value).

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WOW, I second this comment, something is sure amiss there if there's really 64GB installed! I also have 64GB, but it actually shows up. I have to wonder about 700 processes as well...

johnlgalt said:

Your processor running at 50% alone is terrifying, when it is not actively doing a lot. I personally abhor CCleaner, and other cleaning software like that, but I won't tell you you shouldn't use it - only ask why you have to have it running as a process all the time?

Definitely turn off hibernation, reboot and turn it on again, I suspect it needs to recalibrate itself for the new RAM that you have installed.

But, more to the point - I thought you said you now have 64 GB installed? That screenshot says you only have 48 GB installed, (though it does say 74%, so that might indicate it is supposed to be 64 GB, which adds up numerically, but the report of 48 GB is bothersome, especially since your onboard GPU is only a 1050, and I don't think it would be allocated 16 GB), so you might want to do some research on either the replacement motherboard Dell sent you, or else the replacement RAM that you bought, because something doesn't seem right there (and maybe it is just whatever software that is reporting that value).

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I just keep CCleaner running in case I need it and so it tells me when there is a update but I have it installed and don't use it. Right now, I am leaving everything running because when I have more time, I will just make a screenshot of the notification tray so I know what is shown and what's hidden and I'm also on a new motherboard with new CPU and GPU so I'm more trying to see if the system actually will crash or not until atleast I get the in-place repair install working, ideally I want to try the built-in Windows Update based one just to see how it works.

It's a notebook and I think it's more the browser tabs that is pushing it to the high CPU %. Desktops would always have a very low CPU % running the exact same thing just like temperatures. I guess notebook processors don't have the same real capacity as the desktop versions. Maybe also the desktop CPU is running at a higher frequency so the actual speed used would be a different % of the total speed.

As for the screenshot, you are not looking at it correctly as this is SystemInformer formerly known as Process Hacker, the current used physical memory is 47.72GB while the free physicial memory is 16.02GB which is what is not used so you are supposed to add up the numbers in total. Notice the % numbers for each one. System Informer for that only shows the physical memory without the pagefile added.



Task Manager works the same way as it also shows the used memory and not the total memory while there is the Available memory which is known as free memory. You have to add up both to get the total of 63.4GB of memory. Both SI and Task Manager if you look at Memory in more detail will show the 64.0GB installed but only 63.7GB is usable with 268MB reserved.








What is interesting is these are Mushkin RedLine modules which are supposed to be high-end and it uses chips with a S logo on it, not Samsung and not Superman but Spectek which is a part of Micron but according to others, Spectek which according to others are "SpecTek is just rebranded Micron, supposedly lower binned than their Micron counterparts." I am the only one with Dell XPS 15 9570 that uses CL16 memory as everyone else for the last 5 years regardless what brand is used, all memory slower than CL17 will not even post so they can use only CL17 to CL22.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I was thinking the same thing when I saw that status! My processor is screaming along at a lofty 4%, and I was wondering what it was doing anyway.


WOW, I second this comment, something is sure amiss there if there's really 64GB installed! I also have 64GB, but it actually shows up. I have to wonder about 700 processes as well...

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Are you on a notebook or a desktop because CPU % and even temperatures will be different and also the processor used will matter too. Notebook CPU's always have a higher CPU utilization compared to the Desktop parts. I used to run the same things on a Desktop Pentium 4C-3.2Ghz and a notebook Pentium-4M-2.4Ghz and the desktop has low CPU % while the notebook always had high CPU %. Keep in mind that I am using a 8th generation 6 core processor which is known to CPU Throttle while you are on a 14 core processor so it's not a valid comparison just like a Pentium 4C-3.2Ghz is not faster than i7 8th gen 2.2Ghz processor. A better way to explain this is similar to what others said:

"Modern CPU's boost opportunistically if there is power and thermal headroom.

In a desktop, that's almost always the case so the CPU will be running at its boost speed for most of time time.

In a laptop, that's almost never the case, so the CPU will be running well under boost for most of the time. Unless you get one of those chonky laptops that should more accurately be called "luggables"."

And as I mentioned, thermal throttling will have higher CPU % because the throttling is causing it to run at a lower clockrate so obviously if the CPU runs at 3.7Ghz, it will have a lower CPU % than when it runs at 2.9Ghz which is the normal clock rate which is even mentioned here:

"If your CPU is showing 100% usage but you can't account for it via the task manager, it may be that your system is thermal-throttling. Get a can of compressed air and blow out all the fans on your laptop (ensure all fans are spinning). Also, try running it in a cooler area or on top of a room fan to see if that makes a difference. If your CPU usage drops, then the issue was heat. You might wish to investigate replacing some of the fans or getting a laptop cooling pad."

so what they are saying is assume you needed something that only required 1Ghz and you had a 4Ghz processor, that's 25% but on a notebook, that same 1Ghz is from 2.2Ghz so it's already 45%. % is different based on the total available.

Also, the CPU % is reported is not reliable in older Intel CPU generations as this is explained by the HWInfo author:

I am also running in Ultimate Performance for the Power settings so the 100% you are seeing is actually when it runs at a lower speed and when the % goes low, the CPU is actually running at a faster speed. It's almost like some people saying it's not possible to have a CPU Utilization over 100% or mathematically impossible when it was introduced in Windows 11 24H2 as a column in the task manager, so I asked the HWInfo author and you can see his response yourself:

This is also mentioned in this comment here where it's a problem with Intel 8th and later generation notebook CPUs:
A better way as a comparison that CPU % for processes are also higher on notebooks, taskmgr.exe for example is 5-6% which is way lower on desktop systems or more current notebooks. I also know that the Dell Fan Control utility has a major resource handle leak but I will have to live with it as it's the only way to have the fans run and controlled well better than the Dell's own fan management but there will not be a fix for it as the author no longer has a Dell laptop and basically abandoned the project, and the utility does not work on more recent Dell notebooks since no one other than Dell knows how to access that part of the hardware and that utility is always run.

As for the memory, it shows the (used) physical memory in both GB size and % and the (free aka available) physical memory in both GB in size and % as explained above. You need to add both numbers to get the total GB and 100%. The 400 processes was how the system shipped as this is a Signature Edition machine sold by Microsoft so it doesn't have any of the third party software added that you would get if you purchased the machine from Dell. I like to keep whatever is running originally so that should I give or sell the machine to someone else, it will be whatever is supposed to be running when it came out of the box and obviously I will remove everything I added. My aim is not to tweak the machine so it runs as fast as possible. I am a Astrophysicist and I like to put things in normal use so it actually pushes things to the max and if it runs fast at 100%. Also, this machine by design is known to have a runaway 10%+ process for C0 when it's set to S0 sleep mode from the default S3 sleep mode, the later which will have a lower CPU % but the problem is the system will always go to sleep on it's own as I want it to be on 24/7/365 as every minute is costing me $US555.00 or more in income.
You can read about the bug in s3 sleep mode here and I don't have the link for the s0 sleep mode issues but the machine has some hidden runaway process as well:

But here you can see that this machine is known to be laggy for others:

I also have 70 browser tabs running in Chrome Beta and 70 browser tabs running in Chrome Dev, Chrome Dev doesn't work correctly for gmail so they both have identical tabs, it's to remind me of things I did not finished yet which will be reduced later such as the different places for the parts and such to fix my phone so it will turn on again. I don't like to bookmark things since seeing them in front is a better reminder.

When I did the screenshots, I am also running a Windows 11 Canary Hyper-V under the Windows 11 24H2 Beta.

With apologies to @johnlgalt for still going off topic but CPU thermal sweet spots, on laptops, have always been interesting for me. So, @Almighty1, just for interest, this is how I get my CPU's not to thermal throttle and keeping the CPU at 100%. Temp steadies at 83℃.
Added maximum processor frequency to power options. Ten Forums
Using Cpu-Z to stress the CPU and with a little trial and error, I got it to settle on an acceptable 83℃. This is an AMD system with S0 low power idle.

I don't think browser tabs open have anything to do with the processor usage unless there's something like a continuous script running on them. Here's mine with ten Firefox tabs open sitting on static pages. It was at 2% before I hit the screen capture button.