We've all faced the issue of storage bloat in Windows environments, and it seems to be getting worse lately. With technicians often spending significant time managing storage issues on individual machines, I want to know what automated solutions are out there. For instance, we often encounter situations like a Windows installer folder accumulating over 50 GB of files (with a large chunk from Adobe Acrobat that doesn't clean up properly), or an Intune cache folder that hangs onto 20 GB of data. Additionally, vendor tools frequently leave behind huge driver files, and software updates don't always clean up old versions as they should. Windows feature update rollback files also don't get removed automatically as expected. I'm not looking for advice on fixing these specific cases one by one, but rather, I'd love to hear if anyone has implemented any automated approaches to manage this bloat effectively. Are there any universal scripts that cover multiple issues, or are you using Intune remediations for every item, or even reimaging machines regularly?
2 Answers
If you ask me, the best way to tackle this is to go back and deploy laptops with 512GB drives! But considering how pricey flash storage is these days, that's not always feasible, right?
I think the terminology around cache files can be misleading. When people refer to an Intune cache as "left behind," it overlooks the fact that cache is meant to retain data for efficiency. But you're right, if installations leave every file intact, it could quickly eat up space.
I get that, but when dealing with application installs, it feels like cache isn't doing its job well enough. If all those files from installs and updates pile up, no machine will have any room left!