Windows 8 Windows 8 using up a LOT of space, why?

[anotherwindowsuser]

I have windows 8 on my laptop, I don't use the laptop its just a spare computer should my main one fail. After installation I don't think I installed anything besides Edge and a cd burner. Within the windows folder however there are a few folders that contain about 25gb or more of data. Prefetch has virtually nothing in it, Crap Cleaner and the normal windows disk clean up don't do much. I am confused as to why there is so much data being used, system restore function is disabled. Where should I look to see why there is so much data in there? Thanks in advance.

 

[codeup]

You can use a disk space program but the best method is to format and re-install Windows 8.

 

[anotherwindowsuser]

You can use a disk space program but the best method is to format and re-install Windows 8.

This is a very lenghty solution to the problem which in my opinion is not likely to be useful. Remember I have not installed much or used the OS as it is a spare computer that sits in the cupboard so potentiallly I will end up with the same problem...

 

[Neemobeer]

A clean install of Windows 7 thru Windows 10 will be between 16-20GB. This will grow for any application installed and whenever windows updates are applied.

The primary locations that take up space in the Windows directory are

Winsxs
Installers (hidden)
System32
assembly

Of these the only one you can or should clean up is Winsxs.

You can check if it needs cleaning by opening an elevated command prompt or powershell prompt and run the following command

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

if it comes back with anything to clean up you can run

DISM/Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup or optionally
DISM/Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /Resetbase which will clean up more, but you won't be able to roll back