I've seen many posts about this folder on the serverfault.com site but none helped me solve my issue.
I have at least 20 servers with fully packed system partitions (I don't know why, but all system partitions have been configured with 30GB).
The operating system on all servers is Windows server 2008 R2, no SP1 is installed and therefor the tools are non-existent (compcln.exe and vsp1clean.exe), in addition to that i'm not allowed to install SP1 on the servers.
Where ever it was possible i deleted many $NT... folders from the Windows directory and in some servers it did solve the free space issue, but on the rest of the servers I couldn't find any $NT... folders to delete.
Shadow copy is disabled on all servers as well as system restore.
The windows cleanup tool is missing from the right click menu -> properties window of the disk.
I understand that tempering with the WinSxS folder manually is not recommended.
Is there a known solution to my problem?
Best Answer
The solution to your problem is to buy bigger disks. After 10 years of updates, my servers still on Server 2003 are running their 30 GB volumes out of space on a regular basis.
And Windows 2008 R2 on a 30 GB volume? Forget about it; they just need more space. And if your disks are full, sounds like new server hardware's going to be damn near required as well. You can bit the bullet now or later. Now is cheaper.
Personally, I tend to favor a mirror RAID for the OS disk, and where needed, a 4-disk RAID 10 for the data partition (since practically every server made in the last 10 years supports at least 6 physical disks), but either way, this type of situation is why it's best to keep your data and OS volumes on different disks.