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C:\Windows\Installer files?

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5 replies

by jkrebs

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Hello All -

I have an issue with a user concerning disk space and when searching around for files I can clean up, I found that the C:\Windows\Installer folder had roughly 10GB of files. This poses a problem as the user only has a 17GB drive and is running out of disk space very rapidly. I would like to slim down this folder but keep all the necessary .msi files needed for the user's programs to work correctly.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!
Jasun Krebs

5 replies

by kiltie

My folder has only about 20MB, even that is too much imho.

First off, have a look at what is there? Some folder (probably no more than 2) is using most of that space, that's my first guess.

Right click each folder, select Properties.
Are there hundreds, maybe thousands of folders? Should not be that many, and one of them is HUGE.

You need to find out what is using TEN GB, it is massive. Only then can we advise you what is safe to remove/back up etc.

by jkrebs

There are currently 29 folders with a total of 6.8MB. The main issue is there are 1320 total items within the folder, most of which are .MSP files with and average of 20MB in size, with only a handful of .MSI and temp files. This is my main concern.

System is a Compaq W4000 with Windows XP Pro SP2.

by kiltie

These are Microsoft Installer patch files.

If this is not a server, they should not be left around. That would be the reason to keep them all, so that you can perform a client install to lots of machines.

Unless an install failed, and they weren't cleared up, so they are leftovers....

Here is what I mean, explains the sort of thing they are and how/why they are used:

http://tinyurl.com/y4um7x

[b]"When you install Office on users' computers, Setup copies the installation files from the network to a local installation source on the client computer and completes the installation from there."[/b]

I wonder if this was the case, and such a network setup was done on this machine.

hmmmmmmmmmm

Not sure here, is it possible to back them all up somewhere, so they can be retrieved if needed, then try deleting them and wait for the sky to fall in?

maybe not....
Better to wait to see if some of my more knowledgable Network peers here in TR can suggest something, before doing that.

It's all those MSP files that are the space hog, they shouldn't really be there without a good reason for it.
That's all I can think of for now.....

Edited to add link and quoted extract

by blackwolf_001

hey there, i also have this problem and would love to know if its ok to delete the files as i am rapidly running out of space.

This folder contains 31 folders taking up 230 MB, then another 1153 .msp files then the remaining 50 or so of .msi and .mst files taking up the remaining 7+ GB

I have customised the detailed view to include a 'title' section and have seen that although the files have different alpha-numeric names, there are bigclumps that have the exact same size and title.
eg.
there are 53 .msp files, each of 8,285 KB all modified at exactly the same time and date, and all having the title "Office 2003 Patch;xl;8012;FullFile;All

pretty much all the .msp files are broken up into groups like this.
Im wondering if the files are the same and the 'duplicate' ones can be deleted or if they are all necessary for office to run.

also wondering if the presence of these files (im guessing other computers dont have this massize amount of the miles) has anything to do with the fact that i cant seem to get alot of the updates for office 2003 to work. whenever i do automatic updates, all the updates for outlook and excel do not install. perhaps when this happens it is creating backup insall files of these updates?

any help in this matter would be greatly apreciated.
thanks,
chris

by ffoeg

Go through the add/remove programs list and see if there any programs you would like to UNinstall. The installers are also the uninstallers. Uninstall everything you don't need before deleting these folders. If you're not sure still and you'd like to see what all the installers are for, go in there and double-click them msi files. The (un)?installer should start up and tell you to confirm your action as well as what app the msi is for. At this point you can just click cancel.

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