How to disable reserved storage on Windows 10

How to disable reserved storage on Windows 10: In the Windows 10 operating system, starting with version 1903, a special area is created on the system drive of the computer – reserved storage allocated for the needs of the operating system on the computer. There is 7 GB of reserved storage available on the disk for receiving system updates, which is separated from the free space on the hard disk.

Windows 10 Reserved Storage is storage space used to store updates, temporary files, and cache. About once every six months, Microsoft releases “big”, “major” updates to Windows 10, during which the system is reinstalled by updating to a new version.

During the upgrade process, a Windows 10 image is downloaded to the computer from the company’s remote servers. Then the system image is unpacked, a new version of Windows is installed.

During the installation of Windows 10 on a computer, along with the files of the system itself, temporary files appear that take up a lot of disk space. To successfully carry out the process of updating the system to a new version, it is necessary to have enough free space on the PC disk.

Due to lack of space on some computers, the update process failed because the files did not have enough disk space on the device. Microsoft has decided to reserve disk space specifically for operating system updates so that critical updates can be installed in a timely manner.

Over time, the storage size will exceed 7 GB and will grow to the size required by the system. Before performing the next update, the system will delete old files from the reserved area, and the storage will be used to place new files there.

Some PCs are running low on free space, new storage will make things worse, so users are wondering how to turn off reserved storage. Reserved storage can be disabled in the system registry or on the command line, see this guide for instructions.

How to find out if a computer has reserved storage in Windows 10

First you need to look at the system settings to make sure that this feature is enabled on your computer. The point is that reserved storage is not enabled on all computers.

After a “clean” installation on a PC of a version of the Windows 10 operating system 1903 and higher, reserved storage is enabled by default. When you buy a new PC with the latest version of Windows 10 installed, the device already has a reserved area. On computers that have upgraded from previous versions of Windows 10, this feature is disabled.

Now we will make sure that the storage is available on this PC:

1. Enter the Start menu, launch the Settings app.
2. Click on the “System” option.
3. In the System window, click on the Device Storage option.
4. Click on the “Show more categories” link.
5. After that, the window will display the space on the system disk of the computer occupied by various files.
6. Click on System & Reserved.
7. In the “System and Reserved” window, you will see if there is reserved storage on your PC, or if this area is not on the system drive.

We made sure that this computer has a reserved area, now let’s see how we can disable this feature of the operating system in different ways.

How to Disable Reserved Storage on Windows 10 in the Registry

You can disable a reserved area on a computer disk by applying changes to the system registry. To do this, we need to launch the Windows Registry Editor.

1. Press the “Win” + “R” keys.
2. In the “Run” dialog box, enter the command: “regedit” (without quotes), click on the “OK” button.
3. In the “Registry Editor” window, follow the path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager

4. Look for the “ShippedWithReserves” option and then right-click on it.
5. In the context menu, select “Edit …”.
6. In the “Change DWORD (32-bit) Value” window, in the “Value:” field, insert the parameter “0” instead of “1”, and then click on the “OK” button.
7. Close the registry editor window, restart your computer.

How to Delete Reserved Storage in Windows 10 on Command Prompt

A similar operation can be performed using the Windows command line by executing the appropriate command.

1. Run command prompt as administrator.
2. In the command line interpreter window, enter the command, and then press the “Enter” key:

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager /v ShippedWithReserves /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

3. Restart your computer.

Reserved storage will be disabled in the operating system.

How to enable Reserved Storage in Windows 10

If plans have changed, and the PC needs to enable reserved storage again, we will again have to resort to the help of the registry editor.

Do the following:

1. Launch Registry Editor.
2. Follow the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager

3. Double-click the left mouse button on the “ShippedWithReserves” parameter.
4. In the “Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value” window, change the value of the parameter from “0” to “1”.
5. Click on the “OK” button.

Exit the registry editor, restart your PC.

Article Conclusions

The Windows 10 operating system reserves space on your computer’s hard drive to receive and install system updates, regardless of whether there is free disk space. Reserved storage is created on the disk with a size of 7 GB. In some cases, if there is not enough free space on the disk for the normal operation of the computer, reserved storage can be disabled in the system registry or using the command line.