Solved Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

semce2 · Nov 3, 2021

Wish I had seen this VB script sooner, I wrote a powershell script to do the same thing.

barman58 · Nov 3, 2021

It's the way that disk formatting systems work and have always worked, the OS will not tell you how much actual space is used but only the amount of recoverable data there, which is zero in this case

ShamrockRig · Nov 3, 2021

barman58 said:
It's the way that disk formatting systems work and have always worked, the OS will not tell you how much actual space is used but only the amount of recoverable data there, which is zero in this case

Learn something new everyday! Next a grape wont be a grape!

Feuer · Nov 3, 2021

I disabled the task and I have deleted 980 empty folders with the name tw-xxxxx.tmp in "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local" folder location.

you can use this code to disable this task and delete tw-* folders

save it on a bat script
run as administrator

Code:

schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Management\Provisioning\Logon" /Disable
CD /D C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\
FOR /F "usebackq delims=?" %%i IN (`dir /B /AD TW-*`) DO rd /q /s "%%i"
PAUSE

It is your own risk to use that bat script, we do not know any side effect to delete these folders and disable this task yet.

barman58 · Nov 3, 2021

The NTFS system sector size is relatively small / compact compared to some other systems and when a large HDD was one of a 20 MB the sector size was more important than it is today where users have access to multiple Terabyte drives

Feuer · Nov 3, 2021

There are tons of empty folders in "C:\Wİnodows\WinSxS" folder.

Ghot · Nov 3, 2021

Feuer said:
I disabled the task and I have deleted 980 empty folders with the name tw-xxxxx.tmp in "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local" folder location.

you can use this code to disable this task and delete tw-* folders

save it on a bat script
run as administrator

Code:

schtasks /Change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Management\Provisioning\Cellular" /Disable CD /D C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\ FOR /F "usebackq delims=?" %%i IN (`dir /B /AD TW-*`) DO rd /q /s "%%i" PAUSE

It is your own risk to use that bat script, we do not know any side effect to delete these folders and disable this task yet.

Why are you disabling the Cellular Task?

barman58 · Nov 3, 2021

WinSXS is not what it seems, it is a container for duplicates of .DLL files and so the actual space shown is many times the actual space used, this is because they are phantom files, created by a type of symbolic link.

Nothing to be concerned about in normal usage, as it just makes it more efficient for applications to use the correct version of the DLL it needs when there can be multiple versions on the system, from different applications.

Just be carefull with deleting any files or folders in WinSxS as it can cause unpredictable results

The-Hive · Nov 3, 2021

Ghot said:
They are created by a Task in Task Scheduler, as shown above in the pics.
The top red dot shows the task that creates the folders and the bottom red dot shows the navigation through the
Task Scheduler.

The top pic is Windows 10, and the bottom pic is Windows 11.

All you need to do is right click and choose: Disable ...for the task shown by the top red dot, to stop the creation of those folders at every logon.

If I disable the task will it affect ProvTool.exe and what does that do when it's at home?

Ghot · Nov 3, 2021

The-Hive said:
If I disable the task will it affect ProvTool.exe and what does that do when it's at home?

It just disables the "task". Provtool.exe is unaffected.
I don't know what you mean by... "when it's at home".

In the thread on TenForums, in some cases they had to disable the Logon task and the Cellular task.
Something about a device being on a cellular network.

I'm on a desktop.
All I had to disable was the Logon task.
With the Logon task enabled... every reboot, would add about 20 more tw---------------.tmp folders.
With it disabled, it doesn't add any folders, during reboot.

Bree · Nov 3, 2021

barman58 said:
As every file or Folder takes up a minimum of one 4096 Byte sector on an NTFS file system the absolute minimum for 40 Folders is 160 MB of disk space - not a lot in itself but it's a large pile of "nothing"

Actually - no.

Every file and folder has an entry in the MFT. There is some free space in each MFT entry and when a file or folder is small enough to fit in this free space then all its data is stored in the MFT rather than allocating a new cluster for it. Each MFT entry, used or not, has already been allocated, thus creating a new empty file or folder requires no new space to be allocated for it. Only when a folder has a number of files in it will it need a cluster of its own.

Mark Russinovich said:
When the entry data for a directory fits within an MFT record, one attribute type, the index root, describes the location of the entries in the record. As a directory grows, the entries required to describe it can overflow the file's MFT record. In these cases, NTFS allocates index buffers to store additional entries.

Inside NTFS

Ghot · Nov 3, 2021

Ah... it was an AskWoody thread...

Topic: tw-xxx-yyyy-zzzz .tmp files @ AskWoody

After a year of testing and monitoring, I prefer the second method now, i.e. to not let the tw-* files be created in the first place. Another year on and I haven’t seen any adverse side-effects after disabling both the two scheduled ‘provisioning’ tasks – ‘Cellular’ and ‘Logon’. I haven’t seen a single tw-* temp file since.

(Note that you really only need to disable the Logon task. If you’re a road warrior using a laptop with a built-in mobile adapter (e.g. LTE cellular) then you’ll probably need to disable the Cellular task as well.)

ThrashZone · Nov 3, 2021

Hi,
What was that one defcon 3 :lmao:

Ghot · Nov 3, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
What was that one defcon 3

Every time I went there in the Win 7 days... it was Defcon 2... never changed. LOL

ThrashZone · Nov 3, 2021

Hi,
Woodie the drama queen lol
Shame on you for posting that dude

barman58 · Nov 3, 2021

Woody? I'd rather listen to Buzz Lightyear :think:

Ghot · Nov 3, 2021

barman58 said:
Woody? I'd rather listen to Buzz Lightyear

I just went there for the group B, Win 7 patches (security only).
It was just an easy place to find direct links to the security only patches.

I must be gettin' old. I had to google... Buzz Lightyear. :)

Buzz Lightyear - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then, I had to google...
Sheriff Woody, Pixar and Toy Story. Learned all kinds of things today.

The-Hive · Nov 3, 2021

Ghot said:
It just disables the "task". Provtool.exe is unaffected.
I don't know what you mean by... "when it's at home".

In the thread on TenForums, in some cases they had to disable the Logon task and the Cellular task.
Something about a device being on a cellular network.

I'm on a desktop.
All I had to disable was the Logon task.
With the Logon task enabled... every reboot, would add about 20 more tw---------------.tmp folders.
With it disabled, it doesn't add any folders, during reboot.

When it's at home is an English saying which in this case means when it's running

Bree · Nov 3, 2021

Ghot said:
I just went there for the group B, Win 7 patches (security only).
It was just an easy place to find direct links to the security only patches.

You didn't think of going to Seven Forums then? This, I think, was the last one available for all to install. Subsequent ones require an Extended Security Update contract, else they will not install.

KB4534314 Security Only Quality update for Windows 7 - Jan. 14

January 14, 2020 - KB4534314 (Security-only update) Applies to: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, Windows Embedded Standard 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Embedded POSReady 7

www.sevenforums.com

Hazel123 · Nov 3, 2021

It's all greek to me - but I vaguely remember in XP days when doing a clean up there were always lots of temporary files to clean up - anything to do with that?

We still have Buzz Lightyear. The original full sized one and he still talks (when turned on). Think they're collectors items now. Still in the "child's" bedroom (now a teenager) - but last time I looked he'd posed Buzz doing this

Solved Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

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