I would actually strongly recommend against using this procedure, as it's entirely unnecessary to be done in such a radical manner, and it will take eons to complete.

As noted, the primary reason for large content stores is that either too many updates were originally approved, or there are updates that should no longer have approvals.

In Step 3, you should Decline only those updates which are SUPERSEDED and reported as 100% "Installed/NotApplicable".

Steps 4, 5, and 6 are trash. After declining the updates in Step 3, the only thing that needs to be done is to run the Server Cleanup Wizard with just the "Delete unneeded files..." option selected.

The Server Cleanup Wizard will remove the unneeded files and not touch the still needed files. The procedure as written above will delete all of the files still needed and then force them to be re-downloaded -- a very inefficient and unnecessary process.

I tried the Server Cleanup wizard but it never cleared much data, when I performed this method I was able to cut my size from 300GB to 40 GB. I agree that I had to re-download my stuff again but this was done over night on Saturday.

Ahmed: have you tried scheduling WSUS Cleanup (http://wsus.codeplex.com/releases/view/17612) to run once a month? I have this run monthly and it removes a good portion of data, patches that have been superceded, no longer approved, etc.

"C:\Program Files\WSUS_Cleanup_CL\WSUS_Cleanup_CL.exe" WSUS_HOSTNAME f 8530 superseded expired obsolete compress files DB 2>&1
1> "%temp%\wsus_maint.log"

Hi there,

I was wondering what could be the consequences if we delete wsus content folder directly rather than declining the updates first?

I followed the steps but unfortunately I missed that part and deleted wsus content folder. Now wsus mmc is not loading and throwing connection error. Is there any way to fix that. I don't want contents in wsus content folder but need to fix this error. Below is the error I found in event viewer

The WSUS administration console has encountered an unexpected error. This may be a transient error; try restarting the administration console. If this error persists,

Try removing the persisted preferences for the console by deleting the wsus file under %appdata%\Microsoft\MMC\.


System.NullReferenceException -- Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Source
Microsoft.UpdateServices.UI.SnapIn

Stack Trace:
at Microsoft.UpdateServices.UI.SnapIn.Pages.ServerSummaryPage.backgroundWorker_RunWorkerCompleted(Object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)

Any help would be much appreciated.

I have found another quite effective approach.

Go 'All Updates' folder, and set:
- 'Approved' on Approval field
- 'Any' on stuatus field

Then right click on column titles and check 'Supersencence'.

A new column 2 will appear.
Use it to sort all your approved items.

Select all superseded items (they are grouped by 2 different icons), and decline them.

Then go in 'Options'->'Server cleanup wizard' and set only 'Unneeded update files'

Run it.


NOTE: This 'brutal' approach saved a choking server by reducing the disk usage (about 50%).

@Stefano: Your post is very helpful and that works, thank you!

@Stefano yeeessss thank you for the suggestion, it cleared out tons of files when other methods did not work. One thing to add: I got an MMC error when trying to sort on the Supersencence column. I found that if I de-select the Status Rollup colum so that Supersencense is the first column, then it sorts without error.

hi i followed the above and an hour later i still don't see the console populated. the WSUS console appears to crash and it appears to still be syncing. Does the original WSUS folder which was 300GB hope this does not sync all this down again. As i only clicked critical and security updates. Hoping it will finish sooner then later.

I hollowed this guide and everything is fine.
I cleared 1TB of WSUS content. we have a lot of clients un products. I sorted out all unneeded updates and declined them. in the next cycle wsus will download only approved updates.

Thanks for the information your blog brings. I see the novelty of your writing, I will share it for everyone to read together. I look forward to reading many blogs from you. If you want to make your home or office same as pre-loss condition, then reach out to Contents Cleanup, where we use state-of-art equipment and special chemicals.

To: All About Contents; Ummm... wut?