Cleanup useless files and prepare a Windows image for capture.
- PowerShell
- DISM
- Windows 8.1+ (for dism /cleanup-image command to work).
- Delete all data in user directories. Such as Documents, Videos, Pictures, and Music. Many apps create folders in these directories when they are installed. If you use
CopyProfilein your unattend.xml, you probably don't want users to have these junk directories. - Clean up the WinSXS directory using DISM. Use the /cleanup-image DISM command to remove all superceded files from the WinSXS directory. This can recover quite a bit of space on systems which have had many updates installed. The downside is you can no longer uninstall Windows updates.
- Delete all downloaded Windows Update files. Stop the windows update service and delete the contents of
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. Once updates are installed you don't need these. - Delete all temporary files. Files in the current user's temp directory and Windows temp directory are deleted. If you use
CopyProfileyou especially don't want the current user's temp files in your image. - Compact the Windows Installer directory. The C:\Windows\Installer directory contains MSIs for every piece of software installed. Compacting this directory can recover some space.
- Remove Appx Packages for current user. Apps installed for the current user frequently break sysprep.