C:\Windows folder size is 39GB - anyway to reduce it?

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ABBDVD

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Feb 23, 2010
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Hi

I feel like Windows is taking up rather a lot of space and I'm looking for a way to free up some space as 39GB is afaik quite a bit above average. I already reduced it a bit by following leads on other google results from 43GB.
Just some information first:
- The computer in question is a laptop with an SSD
- mainly used for development and gaming
Thus it has amongst other things MS Visual Studio and MS Office installed.

So back to the problem - what I did so far:
- Let windows allocate a fresh SoftwareDistribution folder (which freed up ~800MB)
- run windows disk cleanup including system files (another 2GB)
- run CCleaner

I downloaded WinDirStat which shows the C:\Windows\Installer folder as 15GB large, winsxs 12GB, followed by System32 at 4GB etc.
winsxs appears to be a bit above average - the Installer folder is huge.
4.7 GB of the Installer folder are in the $PatchCache$, almost everything else are files directly in the Installer.
Here's a screenshot from WinDirStat:
20ll930.png

So is there anyway to it some of it down without breaking for example repair and uninstall functionalities of programs installed?

I do not intend to remove/shrink the page file or seek advice on deactivating hybernation.

I'll gladly provide more information if I can - just ask for it.
Thank you for any suggestions.

Regards
ABBDVD

PS: I would like to avoid a Win7 reinstall too ;) the current one is ~1.5 years old.
 
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ABBDVD

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Feb 23, 2010
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18,630

I saw about this already earlier when googling but it was remarked that it's not supported anymore. I'll give it a shot though, as it's supposedly rather conservative and hopefully shouldn't create any problems. I'm also running a back up for the whole folder as we speak so I can undo it if must be.
I found this website which gives two alternative suggestions which I might try later on if MsiZap fails: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/safely-delete-unused-msi-and-mst-files-from-windows-installer-folder/


I might give this a try if I don't have success with my other attempts.

Thanks, to you both.


Update 1: So MsiZap.exe turned out to not work at all. It says "No product/patch data was found" and does nothing.
Update 2: The link to the WICleanup program mentioned in my link appears to be dead. Guess I'll give Glary a try.
Update 3: Glary deleted everything in the Installer\$PatchCache$ folder which did free up 5GB but I'll give the manual approach from my link above a try too as I think there might be some orphan installers still.
Update 4: with that manual approach I was able to reduce the Installer folder to 5GB (considering only the files larger than 50MB so far)
 
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