I use the free Everything program. It lists every file on your PC. Set the list so that you see the largest files at the top. Have a look through the big ones.
I have previously deleted the Windows.old file and the Hibernation file. You can delete files from within Everything. I've also found large files in the Documents folder.

 

you don't have to use 3rd party tools, windows has on board stuff for that, these 3 commands do the same:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded
//edit// my bad, windows clean manager seems to come with windows...
Ok.. I checked it a little, I'm pretty sure it can't get rid of old updates and service packs.
The commands above deal with that.

 

Thanks for all the feedback!

According to WinDirStat, the big culprit is ProgramData @107gb. But in Explorer>ProgramData>Properties it says only 7.56gb.
Within ProgramData, Microsoft folder uses 85gb. Microsoft>Windows>CapabilityAccessManager>CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal uses 83gb.

In Windows Explorer, the CapabilityAccessManager folder has 0 bytes. Go figure.

 

Okay. I think we have a big SOLVED here.

The CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal can be deleted. First the service needs to be stopped. Best practice is to delete the file in Safe Mode using cmd. I was unable to do that, so I deleted it within WinDirStat. I freed up 83gb. The file is still in recycling Bin, in case I run into problems. So far so good!

 

ill recommend u install Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC. super low ram and cpu consume, and space :P from there, check all ur stuff.

 

Funny! Then I just happened to do the right thing a few days ago: to archive the R2R era before the SYSTEM
for posterity in a book (no joke):
THE R2R NFO-BOOK:

Spoiler: The R2R NFO-Book pt.1 (pdf)

 

often overlooked by people is emails. if you never delete...

 

Spoiler: CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal occupies the entire memory space - September 3, 2024

CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal occupies the entire memory space - September 3, 2024
I recently encountered a problem with a client whose Windows 11 PC was starting up slowly and several programs were complaining about insufficient disk space. And indeed, it turned out that there was no more space available on the SSD. The culprit was quickly identified as the file "CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal", located in the directory

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager

The file was located in the directory and, in this case, had a size of 1.6 TB. There isn't much information about this problem online; most suggestions are to disable the "Capability Access Manager" service, then change the user permissions on the folder and delete the file. While this works temporarily, it can have serious side effects and doesn't actually solve the problem.

The "Capability Access Manager" service, which in Windows 11 is listed under "Services" as "Managerdienst für den Funktion-Zugriff" (Capability Access Manager Service), manages camera and microphone access for UWP apps and other programs, if I understand correctly. If it's disabled, neither cameras nor microphones will work in Windows 11. The "CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal" file is a log file that continuously records all access to the microphone or camera.

The solution
The information about what a ".db-wal" file is and an entry in the Windows 11 settings ultimately led us to the solution. Under "Privacy and Security > Microphone," there's an item at the very bottom called "Recent activity." This displays all microphone accesses in the past few days. And there, the culprit was listed: a program that had requested more than 10,000 microphone accesses in the last seven days. These numerous accesses caused the "CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal" file to grow steadily over the course of a month until it eventually ran out of storage space. Since the program was updated, the file is now only a few kilobytes in size and is regularly cleared after the computer restarts.

The program in question was Auto Shutdown Manager , a tool that can automatically shut down computers in various ways. For example, it takes into account whether certain programs are still open. One option is to use the noise level picked up by a microphone to determine if anyone is still in the room. If not, it can shut down one or more computers to save power. Either this option was faulty in an older version, or (what I suspect) Microsoft changed something in one of the recent Windows 11 updates that causes apps to permanently log microphone access. In any case, the program has been fixed, and the problem is resolved. Perhaps this short guide will be helpful to others with a similar issue.

https://office--tipps-net.translate...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp