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Disk Cleanup seemingly does nothing

Anonymous
2022-01-07T00:56:05+00:00

I don't know if this is just me having this issue or not, but every time I run Disk Cleanup it seemingly does nothing to give me back space. In fact, every time I've run it it seems to take away space (not much space, but still). In order for me to regain any space I've had to restart my laptop (simply shutting it down no longer seems to give me back space either even though it used to). I have no viruses or malware (I've checked), so why does this seem to be the case? I still have tons of space on my laptop, but I just want to know if this is normal behavior for Disk Cleanup.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-07T01:40:44+00:00

    Hi, thanks for reaching out! Please allow me to assist you.

    I feel this is normal behavior. There are temporary files that cannot be cleaned up until you have restarted the computer, because these files could be locked by an application and therefore can only be marked to be deleted later.

    When you shut down your computer and assuming Fast Startup feature is enabled, your computer would be placed into a hibernation state instead of a full shutdown. This may not unlock certain temporary files for clean up, especially if an application continues to lock it. Hence, a restart works.

    I hope these explainations help. Please let me know if I can help you further!

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-07T03:50:58+00:00

    There are several temporary folders and such I can't get rid of anyways because it's telling me I need administrator approval (am admin as I own the laptop). Fast Startup is not enabled (I disabled it as soon as found out what it was and have even double checked to ensure the box for it is not checked). All I do for the shut down is go to Start, go to Power, then click "Shut Down".

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-07T14:55:52+00:00

    You can try using Handle or Process Explorer to find out what process is locking those folders.

    https://docs.microsoft.com/sysinternals/downloa...

    https://docs.microsoft.com/sysinternals/downloa...

    Thereafter, close the processes and try and delete the folder.

    Please let me know if I can help you further!

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-07T13:59:11+00:00

    All of the temp folders I'm talking about are in the C:\User[myname]\AppData\Local\Temp folder. Here's a pic of just some of them (many of the ones I can't get rid of are in the pic):

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-01-07T04:02:32+00:00

    Hello, sorry about the frustration encountered. Where do you find the temporary folders? Can you provide some of their names?

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