Can't upgrade to Windows 10 for lack of memory on C drive.

rwahler1

Have Aspire one cloudbook 14. Cannot upgrade windows 10 due to lack of memory on C drive. Paid Windows for a year of service/upgrades and they told me to get a flash drive to free up memory. Did that (32 GB) now they tell me I need external hard drive and referred me back to ACER to increase memory. Cloudbook is out of warranty so Acer wants 70 bucks that I don't have. Windows will stop supporting my current version on April 10th. Really getting the run around here. Need simple instruction on what to do. I am no computer expert!

Sharanji

rwahler1 

>>>>> The quickest way to clear space to install windows update is to run Microsoft’s built-in Disk Clean-up utility, or an alternative such as CCleaner Free, Microsoft’s Disk Clean-up utility can safely delete hidden system files. Click the button that says “Clean up system files” for the option to delete various files including “Previous Windows Installation(s)”. 

Next, go back to the Storage page and click on your C: drive. Windows 10 will scan your 32GB and tell you how much space you have free.  

Though the disk cleanup method basically deletes every insignificant junk files and help regain some disk space, you need a manual deletion of this update installation files, which will definitely release several GBs of storage for you. 

Step 1. In the search box in Windows 10, type cmd and Command Prompt should appear in the result. Right click on it and choose Run as administrator. 

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type the commands and press Enter after each: 

net stop wuauserv 
net stop bits 

Now follow the path C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. Open the SoftwareDistribution folder and delete everything inside, not including the folder itself. 

Step 4. Return to the Command Prompt, now type the other two commands and press Enter after each: 

net start wuauserv 
net start bits 

>>>>> Another way is to add a 32GB or 64GB SD or microSD card  more storage. You can create an icon for the card and keep it on the desktop for quick access. If you have large collections of photos, music, movies etc then you can store them on SD cards. Further, you can now install programs on SD cards, too. 

Finally, you can open File Explorer, right click on the C: drive, select properties, and check the box for disk compression. According to Microsoft when done (takes a while) that should reduce the disk space by 1.5GB (-x86) to 2.5GB (-64)

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padgett

BTW for Microsoft Update to use an SD card or Flash drive it must have at least 16GB of free space and be formatted NTFS.