Reserved Storage is a feature in Windows 11/10. The primary goal of this feature is to make sure that Windows PC does not run out of storage space when it is time to download Windows 10 Update. However, it was only enabled by the Windows 10 Setup process either for new installation or when you reset Windows. In this post, we will show how you can use the DISM commands to enable or disable Reserved Storage in Windows 11/10. The best part is that you can now enable or disable it on demand which means it does not depend on the Windows Setup process.
Starting with Windows 10 v2004 May 2020 Update, Microsoft has made it easy for anyone to find out about Reserved Storage in Windows 10 by adding extra options in the DISM command.
Disable or Enable Reserved Storage using DISM
Let us see how to use the new ReservedStorageStat parameter in the DISM command-line using Command Prompt or PowerShell to manage Reserved Storage in Windows 11/10.
DISM or Deployment Image Servicing and Management is a command-line tool. It is used to mount and service Windows images. It can also be used to fix problems in a running operating system as well. Use the following steps to manage the reserved storage in Windows.
Open Command Prompt or PowerShell with admin permission
To enable Resverd Storage:
DISM.exe /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Enabled
To disable Reserved Storage:
DISM.exe /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled
Once done, to check the status of the Reserved Storage feature, you can execute:
DISM.exe /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState
While the changes should apply instantly, you can always restart to check if it was enabled or disabled.
At times you may get a DISM error 87 saying that the option doesn’t exist. In that case, you will need to execute the DISM command with the cleanup-image option and then try again. The error also occurs if there is an ongoing Windows 10 Update downloading.
Lastly, the command works for online Windows Images or on Windows 10 PC but not on offline images. It will also not work if the reserved storage is in use, and will return an error:
This operation is not supported when reserved storage is in use. Please wait for any servicing operations to complete and then try again later.
It is also possible to enable Reserved Storage via Registry and reduce the size if you wish.
If you try to run on any other version, apart from Windows 10 v2004, it will throw an error saying:
Error: 87. The set-reservedstoragestate option is unknown.
It will happen for options Set-ReservedStorageState and Get-ReservedStorageState.
I hope the post was easy to follow, and you were able to disable or enable the Reserved Storage feature in Windows 10 using DISM commands.
