Creating Windows 10 reinstall/repair flashdrive.

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DrZoidberg

Member
I followed Dave Plummer's instructions ("Dave's garage" on YouTube) on how to create a Windows 10 reinstall flashdrive in case my Win10 machine has OS issue after October when Microsoft no longer offers support for it. The flash drive was 16gb capacity, but the files copied to it from Microsoft site were under 5gb. How can a modern operating system fit into such a small space? Should be at least 25gb?
 
What is on your flash drive are the install files not the whole OS. Those install files are only just over 5 gb but the time windows installs everything then its about 20gb. You used to be able to fit windows on a 4gb flash drive as the ISO setup files were under 4gb. Now with Windows 10 and 11 its over 5gb.
 
Multi-edition Windows images a made using hard-links and compression. This combination allows multiple files to be "shared" within the image, decreasing the overall size.
 
johnb35 said:
What is on your flash drive are the install files not the whole OS. Those install files are only just over 5 gb but the time windows installs everything then its about 20gb. You used to be able to fit windows on a 4gb flash drive as the ISO setup files were under 4gb. Now with Windows 10 and 11 its over 5gb.
Click to expand...
Where does it get the other 15gb of the OS? Online?
 
The install files are compressed so that when it installs, everything gets expanded so thats why the size discrepancy.
 
The majority of Windows files are in the WinSxS folder (known as the Windows Component Store) and hard-linked from there. The WinSxS folder on Windows 11 is approximately 15GB before compression.
 
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