Is it possible to delete the ESD system folder and its contents? ESD Decrypte Utility - Easy Convert ESD to Bootable Windows ISO esd file

Or $ Windows. ~ BT, $ Windows. ~ WS. It turns out that the ESD folder also stores various temporary files that can restore the system if, for example, a critical error occurs. But the question comes, is it possible to delete the ESD folder? I want to say that yes, you can. The folder stores recovery files, which weigh a lot and if you don't have a lot of space on your hard drive, then you should delete it.

Advice! I suggest that at first you do not delete this folder, as well as Windows.old and others, since if you are only recently using Windows 10, then you can test it for now. If everything suits you, then you can delete all unnecessary garbage. I recommend doing this using the standard Windows Disk Cleanup tools.

So, if you have administrator rights, then go to the utility Disk Cleanup, you can enter it in the search box.

Now, in our field "Disks"you need to select the system drive, usually (C :). Click OK.

We are waiting for the system to estimate the disk space that can be freed.


The following window will appear, in which you must click the button "Clean up system files"... We are again waiting for the estimated disk size.

We confirm actions by pressing a button "Delete files" and wait for the operation to be completed.

Once the temporary files are removed you can do some more. To do this, in the Disk Cleanup utility, go to the tab "Additionally" and where the point is System Restore and Shadow Copy push "Clear"... It is advisable to delete all control points, and leave the last one, so that you can return in case of something.


Actually, that's all. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments, let's try to figure it out.

After installing or upgrading the system to Windows 10, many users noticed the appearance of a folder like ESD on their hard drive. Since it occupies 3 GB or more, users try to delete it in order to save space. Should I do this and what consequences can arise after deleting this folder?

What is an ESD folder and what is it for?

When installing the operating system, temporary installation files are loaded onto the hard disk. They have a different type of action. The ESD folder, like $ Windows. ~ BT and $ Windows. ~ WS, stores files that are responsible for recovering the system after a critical error.

Since Windows 10 has strict requirements for the hardware components of the PC, Microsoft developers recommend that you do not delete these folders for some time after installing the dozen. If the system is stable, the ESD folder can be deleted.

Ways to Delete ESD Folder in Windows 10

You can delete the ESD system folder in Windows 10 as follows:

  • Click "Start" and enter "Disk Cleanup" in the search box. We launch the utility.
  • Or press "Win + R" and enter "cleanmgr".

  • A small window will open with a choice of disk to clean. Select drive C.

  • The analysis of the occupied space on the hard disk will start.

  • A new window will open. Click "Clean up system files".

  • In the new window, check the box "Temporary files" and click "OK".

  • It is also worth opening the "Advanced" tab and deleting shadow copies of files. To do this, in the "System Restore and Shadow Copy" section, click "Clear".

  • After clearing this folder, you should restart your computer.

If there is a computer installed antivirus software can scan all files on the computer, as well as each file separately... You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.

For example, in this figure, my-file.esd file, then you need to right-click on this file, and select the option from the file menu "Scan with AVG"... Selecting this option will open AVG Antivirus, which will scan this file for viruses.


Sometimes an error can result from incorrect software installation, which may be due to a problem encountered during the installation process. It may interfere with your operating system associate your ESD file with the correct application softwareinfluencing the so-called "File extension associations".

Sometimes simple reinstalling Microsoft Windows might fix your problem by linking ESD with Microsoft Windows correctly. In other cases, problems with file associations can result from bad software programming developer, and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.


Advice: Try updating Microsoft Windows to the latest version to make sure the latest patches and updates are installed.


It may seem too obvious, but often the ESD file itself may be causing the problem... If you received a file via an email attachment or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (for example, a power outage or other reason), the file may be damaged... If possible, try to get a fresh copy of the ESD file and try opening it again.


Caution: A damaged file can cause collateral damage to previous or pre-existing malware on your PC, so it is very important that you have an updated antivirus running on your PC at all times.


If your ESD file related to the hardware on your computerto open the file you may need to update device driversrelated to this equipment.

This problem usually associated with types of media filesthat depend on the successful opening of hardware inside the computer, for example sound card or video card... For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.


Advice: If when you try to open an ESD file you get sYS file related error message, the problem could probably be related to corrupted or outdated device driversthat need to be updated. This process can be facilitated by using driver update software such as DriverDoc.


If the steps did not solve the problemand you are still having problems opening ESD files, it could be due to lack of available system resources... Some versions of ESD files may require a significant amount of resources (e.g. memory / RAM, processing power) to open properly on your computer. This problem occurs quite often if you are using fairly old computer hardware and at the same time a much newer operating system.

This problem can occur when the computer has a hard time completing a task, as the operating system (and other services running in the background) can consume too many resources to open ESD file... Try closing all applications on your PC before opening Windows Electronic Software Download File. By freeing up all the available resources on your computer, you provide a better environment for trying to open the ESD file.


If you completed all the steps aboveand your ESD file still won't open, you may need to run equipment upgrade... In most cases, even with older hardware versions, the processing power may still be more than adequate for most custom applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work like 3D rendering, financial / scientific modeling, or heavy multimedia work) ... In this way, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(more commonly called "RAM", or random access memory) to perform the task of opening a file.

Which could be downloaded on the official Microsoft website a year ago, there was an operating system image file called install.wim ... The install.wim file is a disk image that contains the operating system files in a compressed state. During the installation of Windows, all files are unzipped from the install.wim image to disk (C :), by and large, this is the main stage of installing the operating system on our computer. There is also a tool calledDism , with which you can integrate drivers and updates into the install.wim file, enable and disable various components of the operating system, restore the integrity of Windows system files, etc. But recently, in all distributions of Windows 8.1, Windows 10, instead of the install.wim file, there is an operating system image fileinstall.esd ... What kind of animal is this, we will analyze in today's article.

1. What is install.esd and install.wim file

2. What is the difference between the install.esd file and the install.wim file

3. Does Microsoft have tools to convert install.esd to install.wim or look for third-party software?

4. Is it possible to use the install.wim file instead of install.esd in the Windows 10 distribution after conversion, or will it be necessary to convert the install.wim file to install.esd in reverse?

What is the install.esd file in install.wim

Welcome all! The install.esd and install.wim files located in the distribution (ISO image) of Windows 10 are archives that contain files of the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 operating system in a compressed state, and Dism is a tool for working with these archives. ...

The .wim or .esd archives can contain one or several other archives (releases) of operating systems (Professional, Home, etc.). Archives located inside Wim or Esd files are called - Images. Any Image in the archive is always assigned an index 1, 2, 3, 4 ...

For example, we downloaded the Windows 10 distribution kit and connected it to the virtual disk drive (E :), go to the “sources” folder of the distribution kit and see the install.esd archive file,

to find out which Images are inside the archive, enter the command at the command line:

Dism / Get-WimInfo /WimFile:E:\\sources\\install.esd

where E: \\ sources \\, this is the path to the install.esd file

As you can see, in the archive install.esd is fourWindows Image with indexes: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Image details: E: \\ sources \\ install.esd
Index: 1
Name: Windows 10 Pro
Description: Windows 10 Pro
Size (Bytes): 14 244 778 516

Index: 2
Name: Windows 10 Home
Description: Windows 10 Home
Size (Bytes): 14 040 329 647

Index: 3
Name: Windows 10 Home Single Language
Description: Windows 10 Home Single Language
Size (Bytes): 14,047,031,800

Index: 4
Name: Windows 10 Education
Description: Windows 10 Education
Size (Bytes): 13 988 924 495

How the install.esd file differs from the install.wim file

It is important to know that when creating a new archive of the Windows 8.1, 10 operating system, a WIM archive file (install.wim) is always created, an Image is created in the archive (for example, Windows 10 Pro) and index 1 is assigned to it. Then, using the Dism tool to archive other Images are added. The added second image will be assigned index 2, the next added image will be assigned 3, and so on. The created images can have three types of compression:

/ compress: none (without compression)

/ compress: fast (fast compression)

/ compress: maximum (maximum compression), if you do not specify the / compress parameter when creating an image, then the compression will be Fast (fast compression).

Microsoft in 2014 developed another type of compression Recovery (maximum maximum)

This type of compression compresses Windows files into an archive even more, as a result of which the file install.esd weighsless install.wim file by 30%.

Only 3 Dism parameters work with the recovery compression type:

Dism / Export-Image ...... / compress: recovery

Dism / apply-image.

Dism / Get-WimInfo

To make it easier to work with archives, an archive with images compressed in Recovery is usually given the extensionESD ... The esd extension is desirable, but not required. It is wrong to assume that if the archive has esd resolution, then compression can only be recovery, just as if the archive has wim resolution, then compression can only be fast, max and none, I have come across wim files with recovery compression several times. Dism does not work by expansion, but by compression - you can put ESD permission when creating an image and Dism will create an image with "fast" compression.I made a small video on this topichttps://yadi.sk/i/B_8mfOjfxhqSk

Hopefully, you now understand how the install.esd file differs from the install.wim file. Both files: install.esd and install.wim are archives with Windows files, and they differ in the type of compression. Ffile archive - install.esd is compressed more and weighs less.

As a rule, those of the Windows 10 insider assemblies that can be downloaded from torrents and other free sources are distributed in the format ESD however ESD is not so much a format as a software distribution technology. Essentially, the file ESD this is the same archive as ISO , but it cannot be used to write and install an operating system with DVD or flash drives.

The ESD file needs to be converted to ISO before writing to portable media. For these purposes, you can use decryption kits usually supplied with Windows distributions, but it is much more convenient to convert ESD to ISO using a utility developed by a programmer Artyom Kononenko.

The utility has a simple and pleasant-looking interface with support for the Russian language, does not require installation, and does not contain embedded ads. It is distributed completely free of charge. Key ESD Decrypte features include creating an ISO image from an ESD file with a standard install.wim , creation ISO -image with compressed install.esd , creating a standard file install.wim and compressed install.esd.

The program also supports automatic checking for the availability of a new version, creating a backup copy of the ESD file, obtaining detailed information about the ESD image (index, language, release, architecture, etc.) and generating hash sums md5 and sha1 for ISO images. In the settings of the utility, you can select the language - English, Russian and Ukrainian are present.

The ESD Decrypte is extremely easy to use. In the file selection field, the path to the original ESD image is indicated, and in the directory selection field, the path to the folder where the ISO image will be saved. Button press "Convert" starts the conversion process, the progress of which will be shown at the bottom of the utility window. On average, conversion time takes about half an hour, and so it all depends on the performance of the computer. Decrypte saves the ESD ISO file with the esd prefix, which needs to be removed, leaving only the extension ISO .