Disabling (or Enabling) Reserved Storage on Windows 11

Have you ever taken a look at your storage space and realized that Windows eats up your storage with Reserved Storage?

So, what is Reserved Storage anyway? Here’s the information I got from the Microsoft Community Hub:

To help you facilitate a “hands free” Windows 10 update experience for your users, Microsoft introduced a feature called reserved storage with Windows 10, version 1903. Enabled by default on newly manufactured Windows 10 PCs and clean installations of Windows 10, reserved storage is designed to increase the likelihood that Windows 10 feature updates can be successfully downloaded and installed without the user having to free up disk space.

– Steve DiAcetis, Microsoft Community Hub

This is actually a useful Windows feature. But if you are like me, and want to be fully in control and free up around 7GB of storage, we can just disable it.

Not in the mood for reading? Watch the video instead.

How to Disable Reserved Storage

To disable reserved storage and reclaim a few GBs of free disk space, follow these steps:

• Open the Terminal app (Run as administrator)
• Type the following command:

Dism /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled

• Check the reserved storage status from the Terminal:

DISM /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState

• Next time you install a Windows Update, the Reserved storage will be gone.
• By that time, check Settings > System > Storage > System & reserved.
• The Reserved storage section will be gone.

How to Enable Reserved Storage

If you change your mind and want to enable Reserved storage again, follow these steps:

• Open the Terminal app (Run as administrator)
• Type the following command:

DISM /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Enabled

• Check the reserved storage status from the Terminal:

DISM /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState

• Check Settings > System > Storage > System & reserved.
• The Reserved storage section will be visible with the number of GBs it occupies.

Video

Conclusion

Reserved storage ensures your system updates run smoothly, but if you are managing a VM or a device with limited space, those 7GB can be better used elsewhere. Just remember to keep an eye on your free space before running major updates in the future.

As usual, if you have any questions or a better method, leave a comment below. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

References

• Managing reserved storage in Windows 10 environments | Microsoft Community Hub