Windows 11 24H2 update yoinks 8.6GB of your precious drive space and refuses to give it back – but a fix is coming

2 weeks ago 8

Windows 11 24H2 contains a bug (among others already spotted) that seemingly eats a sizeable portion of your drive space.

Windows Latest reports that the 24H2 update leaves behind an undeletable 8.63GB cache of files in its wake (a bit like a visitor who doesn’t know when it’s time to go home).

Normally, Windows 11’s Disk Cleanup feature would be able to remove these temporary files after the installation of 24H2, but if you try to do so, this doesn’t work due to the bug – the 8GB cache still remains.

The problem seems to be related to a new improvement made to Windows Update known as ‘checkpoint cumulative updates’ which were brought in with Windows 11 24H2. This is a system designed to trim down update sizes by providing more compact incremental cumulative monthly updates (though some will still be larger baseline updates – we go into this in more detail here).

The issue began with the release of Windows 11 24H2, and hasn’t been cured with the latest cumulative update for October, as folks are still complaining about the 8.6GB of files being eaten up.

Is there any way around this? The best bet is to play a waiting game

Is the bug actually grabbing 8.6GB of your drive, though? Well, we can’t be sure of that, as the 8.6GB of files might not really exist in their entirety on your drive (that’s just the size being reported, and Windows Latest notes the size might actually be smaller than this).

Even so, this is still lost drive space, which is certainly an annoyance – especially if you have a small system drive. So, what can be done?

Well, one option is a clean installation of Windows 11 24H2, which won’t leave any such cache behind – but that’s a lot of trouble to go to in order to swerve around this bug, and it’s hardly a practical solution.

A more sensible option is to wait for Microsoft to fix the problem, as the issue is now on the software giant’s radar, and a cure is going to be incorporated in a future update, we’re told. Hopefully the next cumulative update for 24H2, with any luck.