Summary
The Disk Cleanup executable file cleanmgr.exe and the associated Disk Cleanup button are not present in Windows Server® 2008 or in Windows Server® 2008 R2 by default.
This is by design, as the Disk Cleanup button is part of the Desktop Experience feature. In order to have Disk Cleanup button appear on a disk’s Properties dialog, you will need to install the Desktop Experience feature.
So in order to use cleanmgr.exe you’ll need to copy two files that are already present on the server, cleanmgr.exe and cleanmgr.exe.mui. Use the following table to locate the files for your operating system.
| OS | Architecture | File Location |
| 2008 R2 | 64-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none _c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe |
| 2008 R2 | 64-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385 _en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui |
| 2008 | 64-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_b9f50b71510436f2\cleanmgr.exe.mui |
| 2008 | 64-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000 _none_c962d1e515e94269\cleanmgr.exe.mui |
| 2008 | 32-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_5dd66fed98a6c5bc\cleanmgr.exe.mui |
| 2008 | 32-bit | C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_6d4436615d8bd133\cleanmgr.exe |
Once you’ve located the files move them to the following locations:
- Cleanmgr.exe should go in %systemroot%\System32.
- Cleanmgr.exe.mui should go in %systemroot%\System32\en-US.
You can now launch the Disk cleanup tool by running Cleanmgr.exe from the command prompt.
Disk Cleanup can now be run by entering Cleanmgr.exe into a command prompt, or by clicking Start and typing Cleanmgr into the Search bar.