How to enable the Disk Cleanup tool on Windows Server 2008 R2

I recommend you use using option #2 below for two reasons:

• Installing the Desktop Experience feature will not only install Disk Cleanup, but a lot of other crap you don't need or want on your server.
• Installing the Desktop Experience feature will require a server reboot

Enabling Disk Cleanup Tool

1) Go to Programs & Features, and in the Features section, enable/install "Desktop Experience".   The downside to this is that you will need to reboot your server after installing this and it installs other components you do not need on a server.

2) [RECOMMENDED] -  All you really need to do is copy some files that are already located on your server into specific system folders, as described at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff630161(WS.10).aspx

The location of the files you need to copy depend on your version of Windows:

Operating System	Architecture	File Location
Windows Server 2008 R2	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe
Windows Server 2008 R2	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_b9f50b71510436f2\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_c962d1e515e94269\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	32-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_5dd66fed98a6c5bc\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 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:

1. Copy Cleanmgr.exe to %systemroot%\System32.
2. Copy Cleanmgr.exe.mui to %systemroot%\System32\en-US.

You can now launch the Disk cleanup tool by running Cleanmgr.exe from the command prompt.

By Joe Piggee