On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Steven M. Caesare <[email protected]> wrote: >> You can safely delete all the update install folders for Windows Update and >> Service Packs if your machine is running stable and you doubt you will ever >> need to uninstall them. > > There are dependencies there for future things (think removing/re-adding a > windows component), that you may not realize.
Under <%SystemRoot%>, folders with names matching <$*uninstall*$> can be removed. Now, once you've removed those folders, you can no longer uninstall the related update. It may still show in "Add/Remove Programs", but it won't work if you try it. As long as you're okay with that, it won't cause any further trouble. Examples of these would be <$NtUninstallKB956744$> and <$NTServicePackUninstall$>. You can also safely move them to another partition/disk/server, and then move them back later if you need to uninstall. This is useful if you've got a C: partition that's too small but you can't easily change that for whatever reason. There *are* files that are stored for future installs/updates/etc., but they live in a different folder: <%SystemRoot%\$hf_mig$\>. Do *not* mess around with *that* folder! Say you install a hotfix that was released after SP3, but while you're still running SP2. Then you install SP3. What happens? Well, to avoid having to reinstall the hotfix again, the hotfix package contains files needed for *all* Service Packs. They were all copied to some place under $hf_mig$ when you install the hotfix. So when you install SP3, any files the hotfix would have updated for SP3 are installed instead of the normal SP3 files. Microsoft calls this "hotfix migration"; hence the name. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
