If you purchase a budget laptop with a tiny 128 GB solid-state drive, every gigabyte of storage is precious. However, Windows 11 artificially steals approximately 7 GB of your usable space right out of the box. This hidden partition is called “Reserved Storage.”
Microsoft intentionally blocks you from using this space so the operating system can guarantee it has enough room to download and install massive annual feature updates without crashing. While this is a helpful safety net for casual users, if you desperately need that 7 GB to install a large game or save a video project, you can use a powerful command-line tool to bypass the restriction and permanently reclaim the reserved space.
How to Safely Bypass Windows 11 Reserved Storage
You must use the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool in the Command Prompt to disable the feature.
- Click the Start button and type cmd.
- Right-click on Command Prompt in the search results and select Run as administrator. (Click “Yes” on the UAC prompt).
- First, let’s verify if Reserved Storage is currently active on your system. Carefully type the following command and press Enter:
DISM.exe /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState - If the terminal outputs “Reserved storage state: Enabled”, proceed to the next step.
- To bypass the artificial limitation and instantly disable the reservation, type the following exact command:
DISM.exe /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled - Press Enter.
The terminal will pause for a moment before declaring “The operation completed successfully.” You can close the Command Prompt. If you open your C: drive properties in File Explorer, you will immediately see that your total available free space has jumped by approximately 7 GB. (Note: When the next major Windows update releases, you must ensure you manually keep 7 GB of free space available so the update doesn’t fail).