Freeing up space

[Adam Raff]

Good day,

I created a system that is running XP SP2. The system is used or will be
used for the employees children when they visit or when they need to come in
when they have to bring them. The system is a older system with a small
drive 4gig. For instance I just installed SP2 and in the old versions of SP
you can tell it not to backup the OS just overwrite you can't do that now.
So this leads to my question

In the windows directory there are a lot of files that start with $ntServ or
$ntuninstall. I believe I can delete these with no issues thus getting back
space if I wish since I really don't plan on uninstall any of these
ServicePacks or Updates.

Is there anything special I should do before this or just delete them. I am
aware that once I do this I will not be able to uninstall the SP or Critical
updates that is not an issues since I could just rebuild the system. Again
this is a junk system for the kids to play on when they come into the
office.


Thanks
Adam Raff

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Yes, these are safe to delete. For the $NTUninstall ........ folders, there is an automated utility on my web site, www.dougknox.com, Win XP Utilities, Remove Hotfix Backups.

 

[Adam Raff]

Hi Doug,

I downloaded you Utilities and it removed almost all of the backups but two
3.1 installer (893803) and service Pack 2. Is this by design or are these
two updates new for your software to remove?

If so can I just delete the service pack 2 hidden directory and is there any
place else I should go to after deleting that directory?

Thanks
Adam Raff

Yes, these are safe to delete. For the $NTUninstall ........ folders, there
is an automated utility on my web site, www.dougknox.com, Win XP Utilities,
Remove Hotfix Backups.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

These are by design. The Windows Installer is not a core part of XP, so that particular update isn't addressed. SP2 is not removed, as its not a Hotfix, per-se. If you delete the folder, you'll still have the entry for it in Add/Remove Programs, but that really doesn't impact anything.