Reducing the size of your Windows.edb (Search) and DataStore.edb (Update) databases

Windows Search: Windows.edb

If you use Windows Search (I don’t: I use Everything by VoidTools), your Windows.edb can grow ridiculously large. It is a single file, though it appears to be in two places because there is a symbolic link from C:\Users\All Users to C:\ProgramData :

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb


This is how to reduce its size:

How to offline defrag the index

1. Change the Windows Search service so that it does not automatically start. To do this, run the following command in cmd.exe:

   sc config wsearch start=disabled

2. Run the following command to stop the Windows Search service:

   net stop wsearch

3. Run the following command to perform offline compaction of the Windows.edb file:

   esentutl.exe /d %AllUsersProfile%\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.edb

4. Run the following command to change the Windows Search service to delayed start:

   sc config wsearch start=delayed-auto

5. Run the following command to start the service:

   net start wsearch

Notes:

1. I did not perform the last 2 steps as I’ve kept Windows Search disabled.
2. If you want to reduce the size of the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Projects\SystemIndex\Indexer\CiFiles\ directory:
   1. Before step 1, choose what kind of Windows Search indexing options you want
   2. Between step 3 and 4, delete the directory

Windows Update: DataStore.edb

Windows Update uses the same database structure and is a single file:

C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb

This is how I reduced its size:

net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
esentutl.exe /d C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb
net start bits
net start wuauserv

Talking about Windows Update: you might also want to Clean Up the WinSxS Folder

–jeroen