Microsoft Windows 7 winsxs directory is huge, how to clean up.

I have been running a Microsoft Windows 7 desktop since 2009, in that time and many Microsoft updates later, the C:\windows\winsxs directory has grown to a significant size in proportion to the rest of the hard drive. There is a way to clean this up.

Here are screenshots of the before and after cleanup attempt. Note the savings of 4.8 GB!

winsxs-before
winsxs-after

There are many discussions on this subject. Some talk of a sysnative folder, which I was not able to conjure up. As a matter of fact, it appears that the need for the sysnative folder was not necessary.

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

The result.

cmd643

Source(s)
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/145502-Shrink-that-gigantic-WinSxS-folder-down-to-size
http://www.heckler.com.br/blog/2010/03/16/how-to-open-a-64bit-command-prompt-from-a-32bit-application/