Is it possible to delete the ESD system folder and its contents? What is .ESD format and how can I convert an .ESD image to .ISO format What are windows esd installation files

Having searched for an answer to the question of where the space on the C drive in Windows 8.1 and 10 systems has gone, many people find the “ESD” folder with a weight of more than 3 GB at the root of this drive. What is this folder and can it be deleted without harming the operating system?

Folder ESD in the root of drive C appears, as a rule, after a global system update. For example, if you upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 or from Windows 10 to it, but in the Anniversary Update edition. Also, the ESD folder can be found after using the lightweight method. reinstalling Windows using the Refresh Windows utility. Another example is updating the system using the Media Creation Tool to restore the integrity of system files.

The ESD folder contains the distribution kit of Windows 8.1 or 10, but the distribution kit is defective, but limited, which usually includes only one edition of the system, suitable for updating the current system. In the process of global windows updates The Update Assistant, Media Creation Tool, and Refresh Windows utilities download temporary installation files from Microsoft servers to disk from the computer, some of which are the contents of the ESD folder. Temporary installation files are also downloaded to two other folders on drive C - $Windows.~BT and $Windows.~WS. Their specifics and methods of removal have already been described on the site in this article.

For the update process, the system downloads the installation files, but upon completion of the operation, it is in no hurry to delete them. And these files continue to take up disk space in some cases as dead weight. Why? From installation files, located in the ESD, $Windows.~BT and $Windows.~WS folders, the system is not disposed of, because they can be used to restore it. But if Windows is stable and recovery is unlikely to be necessary, or if the ability to rollback is provided by a pre-made backup by using third party program, these are the very cases when the ESD folder is dead weight, cluttering up the C drive. Accordingly, under such conditions, it makes sense to get rid of this folder. You can get rid of it with the usual Del key.

After installing Windows 10, the ESD folder appeared. Content can take up to 3 GB, so users are wondering: is it possible to delete the ESD folder from a computer without harming Windows 10?

Content

During installation, the OS downloads to HDD temporary installation files. The ESD folder, like $Windows.~BT and $Windows.~WS, contains system files that restore the system in case of a critical error. Installation components take up a lot of space on the hard drive or SSD, and if the OS is stable, it is recommended to remove them.

Removal

Advice! Clean your computer of unnecessary system components through the Disk Cleanup program. This will protect you from deleting files necessary for the stable operation of the OS.

Administrator rights are required to uninstall. Log in:

  1. Search → Disk Cleanup.
  2. From the list of drives, select system (C:).
  3. Wait for the evaluation of the space that can be vacated.
  4. Click on "Clean up system files" and wait for the estimated time to pass.
  5. Put a marker in front of "Windows Setup Temporary Files" and confirm with "OK".
  6. Click on "Delete files", confirm the decision by clicking "Yes" and wait for the operation to complete.
  7. After removing the temporary installation components, in order to increase the space, you can go from the "Disk Cleanup" tab to the "Advanced" tab, and delete the restore points, except for the last one. To do this, in the "System Restore and Shadow Copy" item, click "Clear ..."

After you have installed or updated operating system Before Windows 10, most users were able to notice that a strange folder called ESD appeared on their hard drive. Since it can take up 3GB or more of memory, in order to save space, users are trying to remove it. Accordingly, the question arises windows 10 esd folder can be deleted? Is it worth doing this at all, and what are the consequences?

What is an ESD folder and what is it for?

During the installation of a new operating system, temporary installation files are loaded onto the hard drive. They may have various types actions. The ESD package contains files that will be required to restore the system if a critical error occurs.

Since the operating Windows system 10 puts forward fairly stringent requirements for all hardware components personal computer, so the Microsoft developers recommend some time after windows installation 10 do not delete these folders. If there are no failures in the system, and it works stably, then you can easily delete the ESD folder.

Ways to delete the ESD folder in the Windows 10 operating system

In order to delete the ESD folder in the Windows 10 operating system, you will need to perform the following steps:

  • First of all, you will need to go to the menu "Start", further to search string should be entered "Disk Cleanup". We are launching the utility.
  • You can also press the keyboard shortcut "Win + R", and then enter " cleanmgr».
  • A small window will open in front of you, in which we will need to decide on the choice of disk for cleaning. We will need to opt for the C drive.
  • We analyze the space occupied on the hard disk.
  • A new window should open in front of you. It will need to click on the icon "Clean up system files".
  • A window should still open in front of you, in which you should check the box next to "Temporary files", and then click "OK".
  • You can also open the "Advanced" folder, you will see shadow copies of files that we also have to delete. To perform this task in a specialized section "System Restore and Shadow Copy" you have to click on the icon "Clear".

This completes the procedure for deleting the ESD folder, we just need to restart the computer.

The .ESD format stands for Electronic Software Distribution. It is not a format in the usual sense of the word, but a technology that is intended for distribution. It is used for programs Microsoft distributed electronically. Among the distributions, there is also an image of the Windows 10 operating system. If the .ESD format is used for distribution, then all the programs that are presented in it will have a compressed form. If you download an image of the new operating system, it will be 35 percent larger in size than the Windows 10 file that is downloaded in the .ESD format.

This technology is not yet widely used for distribution of Microsoft products. So far, only those users who have access to the internal lines of the corporation can use it. Distributions in .ESD format are not intended for ordinary users. However, on the official Microsoft Internet resource there are several programs in .ESD, which are located in open access.

Today there are a lot of questions about this format for the reason that users cannot understand why there are programs in the public domain in the .ESD format, but they are almost impossible to download.

Initially, you need to go to the official website of Microsoft and download the ESD image of the Windows 10 operating system from there. It has direct links directly. It should be noted that the images of the operating system will be in English.

If the user already has Windows 10 downloaded, then there is no need to download its ESD image. It can be found in the system folders of the operating system. It should simply be copied from one folder and transferred to another.

When the ESD image is loaded, it must be decrypted or unpacked. It should take the form of an ISO image. This procedure can be done using the programs: Decrypter, NLite, WinReducer Wim Converter. First you need to figure out how this procedure is carried out in the most easy-to-use Decrypter utility.

First you need to unpack the archive and save all its contents in the ESD-Decrypter folder.

In this folder, you also need to copy the Windows 10 operating system and its ESD image from the system folders.

Then you need to go to the folder and open the decrypt.cmd file there. This file must be run as an administrator.


Name

In the column Enter your Option you need to put the number 1.

After that, you need to press any button on the keyboard to go to the next step.

If we go to the ESD-Decrypter folder, we can notice that an ISO image file has appeared in it.

This file can be used to install the operating system at any time. It may also be required to create a bootable USB flash drive, or an installation disk.

If the user already has an operating system on the computer device, then there is no need to download the image from the ESD website. It is located in the C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources folder.


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Currently, the Windows 10 operating system is a popular product. Its ISO image can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website. However, many users are interested in another ESD format. Programs 4.81 14

When updating a build of Windows 10 through the Windows Update system, the installation image of the new preliminary (insider) build of Windows is downloaded to the user's computer in a specially new image format - ESD ( ElectronicSoftwareDownload). ESD is encrypted and compressed .WIM ( WindowsImagingFormat) Windows image.

This image distribution format was first used in Windows 8.1 with an online update of the operating system. Unlike a WIM file, an ESD image cannot be mounted or modified. Microsoft plans to widely use this format for deploying systems. Compared to a WIM file, the size of an .ESD file is about 30% smaller, which is a big advantage when distributed over the Internet.

In this article, we'll show you how to decrypt and convert a Windows 10 ESD image into a familiar Windows installation image that can be burned to a DVD or USB drive and used to clean install Windows 10 or perform an upgrade.

Note. In fact - the easiest way to get a Windows 10 installation ISO image and burn it to a USB flash drive / DVD is to use a free one that will help you download latest version Windows image 10 directly from Microsoft servers.

How to get an ESD file with a Windows 10 image

Let's figure it out where can i getESDfile? When upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, the install.esd file is downloaded to background from the Microsoft repository and saved to the directory C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\(some ID} .

Get the file Install.ESD with the latest build of Windows 10, you can by going to the installed system in the section Start -> Settings -> Updates and Security ( Start -> PC Settings -> Update and recovery -> Preview builds). If a new build is available for your Windows 10, you will be prompted to download and install the new image.

Run a system update for the new build, but don't reboot your computer. During the update process, Windows will download the files necessary to complete the system version upgrade. After the download is complete, open File Explorer and navigate to the directory C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources. Find the file in this directory Install.ESD(it is ) and copy it to any other directory. This is the .ESD file with a compressed image of the latest build of Windows 10.

Advice. In already installed Windows 10 Technical Preview ESD file can be copied from C:\RecoveryImage\Install.esd directory.

To get information about which Windows images are inside an ESD file, you can use the standard DISM utility:

DISM /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:"C:\iso\install.esd"

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.17134.1
Details for image: C:\iso\install.esd
Index: 1
Name: Windows 10 Home
Description: Windows 10 Home
Size: 15,439,030,656 bytes
Index: 2
Name: Windows 10 Home Single Language
Description: Windows 10 Home Single Language
Size: 15,439,078,082 bytes
Index: 3
Name: Windows 10 Education
Description: Windows 10 Education
Size: 15,662,641,239 bytes
Index: 4
Name: Windows 10 Pro
Description: Windows 10 Pro
Size: 15,662,520,267 bytes
The operation completed successfully.

In our example, there are several system images inside the install.esd archive. For example, Windows 10 Pro has an index of 4.

Knowing the ordinal index of the Windows image in the ESD file, you can export it to a WIM file using the command:

dism /export-image /SourceImageFile:c:\iso\install.esd /SourceIndex:4 /DestinationImageFile: c:\iso\win10pro.wim /Compress:max /CheckIntegrity

The resulting WIM file can be converted to an ISO image using third-party utilities.

ESD Decrypter Utility

To convert an ESD image to an ISO file, use the utility command line ESDdecrypter(ESDToolkit) , which can be downloaded from GitHub: https://github.com/gus33000/ESD-Decrypter/releases/ . The ESD Decrypter utility is written in PowerShell so you can easily familiarize yourself with it. source code(to generate an ISO image from a WIM file, the cdimage.exe utility is used).


Dism++ utility to convert install.esd file

To convert an ESD image to an ISO file, you can use a simple and convenient graphical utility Dism++ (https://www.chuyu.me/en/index.html) which does the same as the ESD Decrypter script but has a more user-friendly GUI.


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