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$NTUNINSTALL folders taking up space

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6 replies

by fadbel

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I've passed on a suggestion to Microsoft Support about the proliferation of the $NTUNINSTALL... folders located in C:\Windows. At last count, I have 130 plus and they are in the way. I know that some may be deleted but it takes knowledge of which can be SAFELY deleted, something which MSUPDATE should do when it checks your system for updates. I suggested that these folders be created in their own "sub-folder" under C:\Windows(\UPDATES?) so we don't have to scroll past the multitude any time we need to examine something in C:\Windows directory.
It might not be a bad idea if TechRepublic subscribers also passed on this suggestion to Microsoft.

6 replies

by fadbel

It's a minor annoyance but there should be SOME way to set defaults such as this.
I appreciate your time.

by jdmercha

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/deployment/winupdte.mspx#E6GBG

It looks like you can edit the update.inf file to specify a location for the the uninstall files.

by fadbel

The update.inf files in Windows\Software Distribution\Downloads has no link to the storage area of these $NTUnin... Folders. Besides that, there is also an "Update.ini" Binary file located in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\InstallShield\UpdateService\Database" that could be where the storage folder info resides. I'm not up to editing Binary files.

by fadbel

Greg Shultz has published a procedure for handling these $NTUninstall folders/files in our newletter dated August 03, 2006. Follow that link to the two-page article.

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