Not Enough Space for Windows 10 Upgrade or Anniversary Update
Though the free Windows 10 upgrade offer may technically be over, Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 users who are using assistive technologies still qualify for the free upgrade, and probably every Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 user might be able to free upgrade since Microsoft doesn’t ask for any evidence that you actually use such technologies.
In addition, Microsoft has released Windows 10’s second big update “Anniversary Update”, which contains lots of changes. For instance, Windows 10 interacts with Android Phone or Windows Phone; More Desktop Apps and Games come to the Windows Store. Therefore, many users are planning to install Windows 10 anniversary update. And you might be one of them.
Nevertheless, when you are upgrading Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10, installing new build of Windows 10, or installing Windows 10 anniversary update, you may receive the error message “Windows needs more space“.
And sometimes even taking recommended ways, you are still unable to complete the upgrade or update.
Under this situation, if someone told you there is a solution, you might be eager to try it out, right?
If your answer is Yes, you are reaching the right place, because this post will show you several ways to quickly fix the “not enough space for Windows 10 upgrade or anniversary update” error. But before introducing exact solutions, let’s see how much space Windows 10 upgrade or anniversary update requires.
How Much Space Is Required for Windows 10 Upgrade or Anniversary Update
To upgrade to Windows 10, you’d better prepare 16GB free space in drive C for 32-bit OS and 20GB for 64-bit OS, which is recommended by Microsoft. Of course, more space is better. Installing Windows 10 anniversary update requires the same storage space.
In addition, since Microsoft gives users a chance to rollback Windows 10 to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, there will be a folder called Windows.old created in drive C, which could take several GB of space. Therefore, upgrading to Windows 10 requires more space in C drive than usual upgrade.
If your C drive doesn’t have enough free space, you may receive the “Windows needs more space” error when upgrading or updating Windows 10. Then, you need to take one of the following solutions.
Solution 1: Add Space to Drive C
Since there is not enough space for Windows 10 anniversary update or Windows 10 upgrade on C drive, to enlarge this drive is a good choice if there are extra partitions having free space available. And MiniTool Partition Wizard could help you complete this operation in very simple steps and without data loss.
Further Reading:
MiniTool Partition Wizard is a free partitioning tool that can help users extend a full partition (especially C drive), recover lost partition, rebuild MBR, align partitions on SSD, and do lots of other partitioning operations under Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10.
MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Here is the tutorial on how to add space to drive C with MiniTool Partition Wizard.
Step 1: Download this freeware and install this program to one of drives that you will not operate. Then, please launch it to get its main interface and right-click the C drive to select Extend.
Step 2: Choose an existing partition or unallocated space from the drop-down list of “Take Free Space from“, and drag sliding handle to decide how much free space to take to enlarge drive C. Then, click “OK” to continue.
Step 3: Now you can see drive C is enlarged, so please click “Apply” button to make this change finally executed.
Once drive C is enlarged, you can restart upgrading to Windows 10 or installing Windows 10 anniversary update.
Solution 2: Upgrade Hard Drive to a Larger One
You can upgrade to Windows 10 or the Anniversary Update after upgrading the small hard drive to a larger one.
You can complete disk upgrade without reinstalling Windows as well as programs, and it just requires simple operations. At first, you should connect both source disk and target disk to the computer, and then use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to copy disk.
Here is the tutorial.
Step 1: Launch the software to enter the main interface. Then, right-click the source disk and choose Copy.
Step 2: Select the target disk which is used to place the copy of the source hard drive, and click on Next to continue.
Step 3: This interface enables you to review the changes after copying disk. Here, you can also choose a suitable copy options according to your personal situations. Then, click on Next to continue.
Step 4: A note window pops up. It tells you how to boot from the destination disk. Then click on Finish to go back to the main interface.
Step 5: Press Apply and then this software will inform you to restart the computer. Just do it.
After the clone is completed, you can boot Windows 7/8.1 or Windows 10 from the larger disk and then restart Windows 10 upgrade or anniversary update.
Nevertheless, if you are unwilling to use third party program though it is free, you can employ solutions given by Windows Setup or Update.
Solution 3: Remove Useless Files and Apps
“Windows needs more space” error is always coming with 3 recommended solutions:
- Remove any files and apps that you no longer need.
- Use Disk Cleanup to free up space.
- Choose another drive or attack an external drive.
To remove files, just select and delete them. But to remove apps, you’ll need to uninstall them in Control panel or using third party programs. In addition, if you want to clear useless files more radically, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard.
Solution 4: Clear Drive C to Free up Space
Different operating system requires different operations to clean hard drive, so I introduce it separately.
In Windows 7 and Windows 10:
Click Start button, type Disk Cleanup in the Search box, run this program as administrator, choose drive C to clean, check files to delete, and click OK.
In Windows 8.1:
Go to Control Panel, then System and Security, and choose Free up disk space. Then, choose C drive to clean up, check files you want to delete, and click OK to perform deletion.
Solution 5: Use an External Drive
If you cannot free up enough space on drive C to upgrade to Windows 10 or install Windows 10 anniversary update, you can use an external drive, like a USB flash disk, a USB hard disk, or a SD card.
After the external drive is connected, please tap on “Choose another drive or attack an external drive with recommended capacity available“, and then select the drive letter of the external drive to go on upgrading or updating.
Nevertheless, some users reported that they still receive not enough space for Windows 10 upgrade or anniversary update error though C drive has enough free space. In this case, please try the last method.
Solution 6: Upgrade or Update Windows 10 Using Media Creation Tool
Media Creation Tool makes it much easier to upgrade Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10 or update Windows 10 to the latest version. Please do upgrade or update by following these steps:
Step 1: Download Media Creation Tool from Microsoft.
Step 2: Run MediaCreationTool.exe.
Step 3: Choose “Upgrade this PC now“.
Step 4: Select “Keep personal files and apps“.
Step 4: Let it install.
After these steps, you should have Windows 10 or Windows 10 anniversary update.
Not enough free space to upgrade to Windows 10 or install Windows 10 anniversary update? Now try one of the above solutions to fix this issue. Good luck to you.
Other Issues Related to Windows 10 Upgrade or Anniversary Update
Apart from “Windows needs more space” error, you may encounter many other problems when upgrading to Windows 10 or installing Windows 10 anniversary update. Here, I introduce 3 typical cases.
1. You couldn’t update the system reserved partition.
This error message appears largely because there is not enough free space in system reserved partition or EFI system partition for Windows 10 upgrade. So, to fix this issue, you need to add more space to this partition. Please view the post Best Fix: “We Couldn’t Update System Reserved Partition” Windows 10 to get specific steps.
2. Windows 10 Anniversary Update Deleted Partitions.
Lots of users complaint that one or some of their partitions got lost after finishing Windows 10 anniversary update. But luckily, the lost partitions can be recovered. For detailed steps, please see 3 Methods to Solve – Partition Disappears in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
3. C Drive Is Full after Successful Upgrade or Update.
After upgrading to Windows 10 or installing Windows 10 anniversary update successfully, you may find drive C is running in low disk space. You can choose to delete unnecessary files/folders to release free space. For example, you can delete the Windows.old folder, if you do not plan to downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7 or 8.1.
Alternatively, you can choose to add more space to drive C if other partitions have much free space available. MiniTool Partition Wizard could help you enlarge C drive without affecting data.
Bottom Line
Should you have any problem on upgrading or updating Windows 10, just let us know, and we will try our best to help you out. You can either leave us message in Comments part or send us emails to [email protected].
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.