Disk Cleanup on Server 2008 R2 is ineffective

Question

I have a user profile with ~2.9GB of Error Reports backed up in the ReportQueue folder (C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue). Running DiskCleanup as the administrator does not detect these files and therefore does not clean them up. However, running the utility as the user shows an even larger amount (12.4GB!) of error reporting files. As seen below:

enter image description here

The problem is that after running the cleanup utility the disk spaced used does not decrease by anywhere near 12.4GB and running the utility again detects the same 12.4GB of files.

What is the problem here?
Alternatively, can I manually delete the files in the ReportQueue folder?

I'm sure you can manually delete them and Windows won't baulk. I don't have Server 2008 R2 in front of me, but in Win7 press start -> Type Problem -> Select View all Problem Reports -> Click the button at the bottom "Clear all Problem Reports". — Dom, Oct 11 '11 at 12:10
@EEAA It would be fairly effective at signalling, e.g., "Careful! Live environment! Zomg!" or so. :) — Cornelius, Sep 04 '14 at 14:26

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '11 at 18:27

2

I'm not going to lie, I've never ever ran Disk Cleanup on a server in 7 years of managing Windows based networks.

Personally I'd either delete the files manually or just delete the local user profile. I assume this stuff isn't in their roaming profile, if applicable?

I'd be far more concerned as to what has been going wrong to generate 3Gbs of error reporting!

answered Oct 10 '11 at 18:27

Dan

15,430
1
36
67

The error reports are all for the same program called pcmmapird.exe that is faulting periodically because of ShoreTel Communicator. ShoreTel has always had spotty support for Outlook so I'm not that worried about it. – Chris76786777 Oct 10 '11 at 19:11

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 11 '11 at 02:17

1

You can use a free 3rd party drive space analysis tool to visually see where the space is taken up and find the folders to delete that way. It's not as user friendly as drive cleanup but it can be useful. It won't protect you from deleting important files so be sure you know what you are doing. R-click and run it as admin so it can see in all the hidden folders:

http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

answered Oct 11 '11 at 02:17

Bret Fisher

3,973
2
21
25

2

I use WinDirStat to work out where the space is going https://windirstat.info/ – Matthew Lock Nov 06 '15 at 03:07

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 15 '13 at 06:17

1

Use the following cmd as suggested in this blog post.

cd \ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue
del /s *.tmp.hdmp
del /s *.tmp.mdmp

edited Feb 15 '13 at 06:17

mgorven

30,615
7
79
122

answered Feb 15 '13 at 05:42

Iftikhar Imtiaz A. Khan

11
1

Disk Cleanup on Server 2008 R2 is ineffective

3 Answers3