Windows 8 Tip of the day – How to recover ~6GB of space on your Microsoft Windows Surface

Here is how you can recoup ~6GB of space on your 32GB Surface.  Here is what you need to do:

(edited to fix link, add comment about removing the recovery partition.)

1. Note this will prevent the machine reset from being able to happen.  If you don’t care about resetting your machine, Step 1 is for you!  If not proceed to Step 2.

Delete the recovery partition – (create USB recovery drive)

Create a USB recovery drive

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/support/surface-with-windows-rt/files-folders-and-online-storage/create-a-recovery-drive

2. Remove Windows Update cached data (will not be able to uninstall hotfixes afterwards though):

a. Stop the “Windows Update” service

b. Delete the folders/files under the “C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download” folder

c. Start the “Windows Update” service

Again these tips are brought to us via Robert Mitchell!

He’s this guy:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/robert%20mitchell%20%5Bmsft%5D/

and

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-mitchell/3/a0a/551

and

http://www.windowsitpro.com/author/5787734/RobertMitchell