Low on disk space on Windows 2008 R2 SP1? cleanup some space with the DISM tool.

I have had this issue from time to time, mostly when running SSD drives on Hyper-V hosts with limited storage (EG: 146GB or so)

Running this command free’s up like 4GB or more. so it can be a lifesaver when you are running too lean. The real fix is larger partitions for the OS. We have started using 100GB as the standard instead of smaller drives and that has helped. However, you still need to keep things clean. This command will remove unneeded files from the hard drive and has no side effects, the files removed are for architectures you do not have and service pack files that were superseded by other patches.

Problem statement:

Your server is critically low on space on the C: drive. This happened sometime after installing SP1 on your server. (This also can happen on Windows 7 SP1)

 

Solution:

Run the Cleanup tool from an administrator elevated command prompt

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

 

Before running the cleanup tool:

before cleanup tool

 

While Running the tool:

running tool

 

Free Space after running the tool:

After running tool

More information on this command:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2011/02/15/how-to-reclaim-space-after-applying-service-pack-1.aspx