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View Full Version : Deleting the $NTUninstall directories?

Feek
02-01-2009, 11:13
YMF's PC only has a very small hard drive and there are loads of $NTUninstall and a couple of $NTServicePackUninstall directories in \windows

Is it OK to blat these? It's not a huge amount of space but every little helps.
Burble
02-01-2009, 11:37
You can but you won't be able to remove any of the windows updates once you have done so. If you do try to uninstall an update after having a tidy up you'll get a message saying something like the update may have already been uninstalled and asking you if you would like to remove the entry in the add/remove programs list.

Personally I don't remove them because on occasion I've needed to roll back an update.
Feek
02-01-2009, 11:56
That's what I thought but wasn't 100% sure, thanks Burbs :)
Blighter
03-01-2009, 00:36
What burble said.

Maybe sort them by date and delete all but the most recent?


Also, try out CCleaner. It's a fantastic program (I stupidly made my OS partition 10GB so also have the same issue with temp files :()
LeperousDust
03-01-2009, 01:16
What burble said.

Maybe sort them by date and delete all but the most recent?


Also, try out CCleaner. It's a fantastic program (I stupidly made my OS partition 10GB so also have the same issue with temp files :()

10GB thank the lord you're not using Vista ;) I set mine to 20Gb thinking i'm giving myself ample space and its actually a nightmare! ;D I've got 1Gb to play around with right now, and that includes having my pagefile elsewhere...
Blighter
03-01-2009, 01:22
10GB thank the lord you're not using Vista ;) I set mine to 20Gb thinking i'm giving myself ample space and its actually a nightmare! ;D I've got 1Gb to play around with right now, and that includes having my pagefile elsewhere...

I'm an XP fanboi ;)
Stan_Lite
03-01-2009, 10:20
I did it when I installed XP on my little Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee because I never uninstall updates. If you're confident you won't want to uninstall any Windows updates then go for it. If you think you might need to then don't.
As Blighter suggests, try running CCleaner - it's amazing how much crap it finds sometimes.
Feek
03-01-2009, 10:33
Ahh yes, ccleaner, I'd forgotten about that (it's been a while since I've played with a Windows box), thanks :)

*installs*
Stan_Lite
03-01-2009, 10:44
It's one of the first things I install when I build a Windows machine and I run it as soon as I've installed everything I need on that machine and once a week thereafter to keep things tidy. The disk cleaner app in the Windows system tools does an ok job but it's not nearly as thorough as CCleaner and you also have the registry cleaning tool on CCleaner, which is really handy.
Blighter
03-01-2009, 23:17
It's one of the first things I install when I build a Windows machine and I run it as soon as I've installed everything I need on that machine and once a week thereafter to keep things tidy. The disk cleaner app in the Windows system tools does an ok job but it's not nearly as thorough as CCleaner and you also have the registry cleaning tool on CCleaner, which is really handy.

I never ever touch registry cleaner stuff. Can't trust them.
Mark
04-01-2009, 17:02
If you know when you last installed a Service Pack, and you don't think you'll ever uninstall it, then it should be safe to delete that folder and any update folders that are older. Windows keeps them around in case you decide to uninstall the Service Pack, but I've never uninstalled one to date, so I've certainly deleted these folders before if I needed the space.