Introduction
Whenever you install any role or feature in Windows Server, the installation wizard or PowewrShell cmdlet looks for installation files in a specific location i.e. WinSxS folder located in C:\Windows\WinSxS folder. If you go to this folder and check its properties, you will see it contains the largest space in the entire Windows folder around 6 GB approx in my Windows Server 2012 R2 installation.
And in server’s case, not all the roles and features are installed on servers. Only a small amount of roles are needed like Web Server, Active Directory etc. So this consumes lot of space for the roles and features which we don’t need to even install.
Now in Windows Server 2012, you have the option via PowerShell to remove the files you don;t need. I will tell you how.
Actual Lab
- Open PowerShell.
- Type Get-WindowsFeature, to get the full list of available/installed/removed features.
- Now to uninstall and remove the files from WinSxS folder, simply issue Uninstall-WindowsFeature Feature Name -Remove cmdlet.(E.g to remove Windows Server Migration tools, use the command Uninstall-WindowsFeature Migration -Remove). If you don’t use the -Remove keyword, the installation files will remain in the WinSxS folder and will be used if you install the role at a later time without going to WIndows Update website.
- If you want to install this role/feature at a later time, you can do this, just make sure that your server is connected to the Internet and issue this command Install-WindowsFeature Feature Name cmdlet. The command will first look at WinSxS folder, if the files are not found, then it will fetch the required files from Windows Update website.
This will save you considerable amount of space on your server hard disk.
You can also watch the full video here.
Tech Solutions 
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