Storage space is not a problem until it runs out. Then it’s time to save or expand the space. What many users don’t know: Windows has built-in hidden features that can be used to easily shrink an installed system to save a few GB of space on your hard drive or SSD.
Windows isn’t a particularly bloated system, but version 10 takes up around 15GB of storage space over the 64-bit version, according to Microsoft. But of course, that alone isn’t enough in practice: there’s also room for updates, system restore points, temporary files, and more.
Of course, additional installed programs are not taken into account here. You can see the space required by your installation in “Memory Usage” of Windows. In the “System and Reserved” area, for example, it shows 26.7 GB on a test machine at the editorial office, a realistic value for a typical Windows.
CompactOS built-in compression
When the hard drive or SSD is full, nothing works. With CompactOS’s built-in compression, you can quickly free up a few GB of space on Windows.
The principle: Windows compresses system files and practically shrinks them. This also happens automatically when Windows recognizes that free storage space is running low.
Start a command line with administrator rights. with the command compact /compacts: query check the current status. Windows can indicate here that there is no benefit of compression on the existing system. So it is advisable to keep your hands away from the compression.
Shrink Windows installation
To compress Windows 10 system files, use the command compact /compacts:always. After a few minutes, the tool will show how successful the compression was.
In our test run on Windows 11, we were able to save around 4.5 GB of space in just a few minutes. Microsoft itself claims that of the around 15 GB that Windows 10 should occupy, you can save 3.7 GB with the controller.
It’s not much you get from compressing Windows binaries. So the feature is more of an emergency nail if your drive fills up and hits a wall in a system otherwise. In such emergencies, Windows also turns on compression.
undo shrink
Note that CompactOS saves space but costs performance because system files must always be uncompressed first. So test if the compression on your system is a help or slows it down too much.
If the downsides outweigh the downsides, you can use the command compact /compacts:never undo the compression.
But the Compact command used can do even more: you can also use it to compress folders clamp. There is even one for this. small tool with graphical user interfacewhich you can use for this.
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