Monday, May 19, 2008

Cleanup $NTServicePackUninstall$ and SoftwareDistribution Folder

Service pack and Windows update installations leave a lot of unnecessary files in the %SystemRoot% folder. They occupy a lot of space and you can safely delete these files. Do this only when you are sure that you will not need to uninstall any of the updates or Service Pack.

To remove the Service Pack uninstall files
  1. Go to C:\WINDOWS and delete "$NTServicePackUinistall$"
  2. Go to Add/Remove Programs.
  3. Click "Service Pack 1"(2)(3), there will be an error since you just deleted the file.
  4. Click YES to delete the shortcut.
  5. Use similar procedure to delete uninstall files for the updates.

The updates will be in this format "$NTUninstall********"
Do NOT delete "$hf_mig$"

To remove the Automatic updates' files in SoftwareDistribution Folder

Automatic updates are downloaded in %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder and occupy a lot of space. You can safely delete these files.

  1. Open a command prompt window
  2. type net stop wuauserv and press enter
  3. Open Windows Explorer and delete all contents in the folder c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
  4. Go back to Command prompt window and type net start wuauserv and press enter

Be sure to restart Windows before before another attempt at getting the updates !!

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Tags: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP

Published Date: 20080519

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