C:\ Drive Space Issue because of WINXs Folder

Using below steps you can shrink WINXs Folder.

Note that steps 1 to 4 and 11 to 12 are not required if SQL service is not running on the server. The actual shrinking takes place from step 5 to step 10.After going through all the steps the shrinking does not take effect until the server is rebooted. It has been observed that you need to run the commands twice or thrice to free up 2 GB of space.

Open CMD prompt with elevated access and run below commands. The previous command needs to finish before you run the next one.

1. sc stop msiserver 

2. sc stop TrustedInstaller 

3. sc config msiserver start= disabled 

4. sc config TrustedInstaller start= disabled 

5. icacls "%WINDIR%\WinSxS" /save "%WINDIR%\WinSxS_NTFS.acl" /t 

6. takeown /f "%WINDIR%\WinSxS" /r 

7. icacls "%WINDIR%\WinSxS" /grant "%USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME%":(F) /t 

8. compact /s:"%WINDIR%\WinSxS" /c /a /i * 

9. icacls "%WINDIR%\WinSxS" /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" /t 

10. icacls "%WINDIR%" /restore "%WINDIR%\WinSxS_NTFS.acl" 

11. sc config msiserver start= demand 

12. sc config TrustedInstaller start= demand