some of these settings are managed by your organization

Hi,

I also have "the message", but I only had 4 folders in the list in "Settings\System\Storage\"Others".

So I removed 3 of the 4 folders (2 of them were directly in C:\, one was a subfolder of the User folder) to a backup place (external USB drive).
For the fourth folder, it was a bit more complicated, because it was (pnly) a certain number of files within the root folder. But there is an indication of the size in "Settings\System\Storage\Others", which allowed me to find the (several) files, which made up the total size and which I also removed.

Restarted the PC.
There was nothing left. (The system didn't indicate anything that could potentially be removed in "Others").

But the message was still there !

Then I found out however that even after havig removed all the folders / files that were explicitely listed in "Others", there was always that (horizontal) indicator line in "Settings\System\Storage" (= the folder hierarchically above "Others") that run up to one third of the maximum. In fact I had 29.2 GB (classified as "Others") before removing the explicitely specified folders and 25.5 GB after that. And then I read that Microsoft says, when you click on the horizontal indicator: "Here are SOME of the most voluminous folders ...". And the 29.2 GB represent 1/3 of the size of my whole C-Drive (Edit) and must necessarily include (parts of) the "Windows" folder, because of the size.

So my test doesn't prove anything !

I think @Brink has actually explained everything on the first page of this thread. First of all, this is not an error message, there is no problem, and hence there is not and cannot be a solution.

This message is not unique to the specific settings area, but may appear everywhere. For me, for example, it appears in the Windows Updates part of the Settings. The reason for this (for me) is that I edited the Group Policy. Apparently (and the only explanation for this is that Windows is really geared towards paying customers, aka businesses) Settings interpret Group Policy edits as "organization restrictions".

On Home versions of the OS the Group Policy Editor is not available, but it does not mean that the policies cannot be configured. Sometimes this can be done using the third-party software, sometimes this is baked into the installer, sometimes this is done directly in the registry. In any case, once such policy is configured, it cannot be changed by users in Settings, hence the message (at least here there is some logic). Whether the user account is local or not makes absolutely no difference.

Now, just as @Brink said, you should not fixate on the message, but rather see whether any settings are missing. If yes, then we can figure out how to get them back. If all settings are there, then there is nothing to worry about and you should simply disregard this message and go on with your life.

I think, I found the solution !

My assumption concerning the "Windows"-Folder was wrong !

I had tried a software called "Toolwiz TimeFreeze" yesterday. This is a program which does a copy of your whole system before you are installing a software and allows you to go back to the previous situation, if you don't want to keep it. (I temporarily installed Visual Studio for a compilation, which is horrible to remove, because of the leftovers in the registry).

And there was still a copy of the whole system in the "TimeFreeze"-folder in my "root"-folder (C:\), which completely falsified my size calculations.

So I deleted the "Timefreeze" folder in C:\ and did the same procedure again as yesterday (described in the above post). After restarting the computer, there was:

No more message in "Others", because the whole "Others"-folder in "Settings\System\Storage" had disappeared..

Then I put one single file back into C:\ and the "Others"-folder and the message was back.

So my conclusion is:

Whenever you put a folder or a file into the "Root"-folder (e.g. my "Python"-folder) or into the FIRST level of your "User"-folder (e.g. I created a folder which only contains icons there), but not when you respect the hierarchy of folders pre-installed by WIN 11, i.e. whenever the system discovers a file or folder "that shouldn't be there" (compared to the folders pre-installed with Windows 11), then the "Others"-folder in "Storage" is created and those files or folders are controlled / by Microsoft / the System (which apparently has Administrator rights in this case).

By consequence the above discussed message appears !

Just my two cents.

He said it was a long time ago. (This was aimed at Mike asking if it was a HP)

Shiv, for the last time, no one here knows how to remove it. The End.

AddRAM said:

He said it was a long time ago.

Shiv, for the last time, no one here knows how to remove it. The End.

Click to expand...

Anything past this is beating a dead horse.

We have replied to a dead horse for 65, make that 66 replies.
IMO, the message should not be there at all. I can understand it showing up in Windows update if we use a method to stop updates, but here, it really doesn`t make much sense.

I`m sorry to continue but, I think there be something we have overlooked.
His is actually turned on (hence the color blue) (Aqua for you Fanatics) where as mine and probably others that it shows up for is grayed out.

I edited it to my reply so we wouldn`t have 68 replies.

AddRAM said:

We have replied to a dead horse for 65, make that 66 replies.

Click to expand...

Well,., Shawn nailed it in post #7 so it's about 60 replies.. but it's dead.. DIE THREAD DIE!!