Don't worry! Microsoft still plans to update old 32GB laptops

Back in April this year, Microsoft announced that you need at least 32GB of storage space in order to install the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. This news created a lot of confusion among PC users.

Thankfully, Microsoft clarified that the new storage space requirements apply only to new devices.

We all know that Microsoft never announced a storage requirement for any of the previous versions of Windows. The storage requirement for all those versions varied based on the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of the OS.

Typically, 32-bit versions require less storage space as compared to the 64-bit versions. Starting May 2019 Update, Microsoft doubled Windows 10‘s storage requirements for both versions.

Many users wanted to know the reason behind this decision. Microsoft offered more information about this decision in a support document recently published.

The company says this decision was taken due to the Reserved Storage feature introduced in Windows 10 May 2019 Update. This feature is enabled by default on new devices that come pre-installed with the latest OS.

However, when you upgrade from an earlier Windows 10 build, no such feature is enabled. Microsoft explains in its support document that:

New disk space requirement for Windows 10, version 1903 applies only to OEMs for the manufacture of new PCs. This new requirement does not apply to existing devices. PCs that don’t meet new device disk space requirements will continue to receive updates and the 1903 update will require about the same amount of free disk space as previous updates.

The idea behind Reserved Storage

The Reserved Storage feature aims specifically at improving the performance of Windows 10 updates.

We all know that apps, temporary files, and Windows updates chew up a lot of storage space. Therefore, Microsoft decided to set aside some disk space specifically for update installs.

Obviously, this feature may spark anger among some users. No one wants a substantial amount of storage space to be occupied by Windows 10 on a newly purchased device.

Many users often complained about the bumpy upgrade process. The new system requirements are part of Microsoft’s efforts to make the update process smoother.

Therefore, we need to compromise on some storage space to avoid update errors.

All in all, this new storage requirement only applies to new devices. You can still upgrade your older systems with less than 32GB of storage space.

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