What are these files doing on my PC?

[Maestro Mysterieux]

A program complained that there wasn't enough space on C:, so I had a
look. I found that directory
C:/WINDOWS/
Installer/
$PatchCache$/
Managed/
84514B.../ (a very long filename)
8.0.50727/

has 2310 files (read-only) using 1.59GB of space!

Most of the filenames begin with "FL_".
All of these have a modification date of Sept 23, 2005 at various
times.
A bunch of files which begin wih "COMPONENT_" have a modification date
of April 11, 2005.

Is this normal? Where did these files come from? Is it safe to try to
get rid of them?

 

[Doug Knox - [MS-MVP]]

From what I've been able to determine, these are cached copies of files that
are replaced when various patches are installed. These are not necessarily
operating system patches, but could include Microsoft Office, Visual Studio
and other programs that use the Windows Installer.

You could try moving the folder to another hard disk, and see if anything
complains about it. If not, after a while, it may be safe to delete.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart
Display\Security
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
--------------------------------
Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
--------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.

in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[mikeyhsd]

do as Doug Know suggested but also you can run Disk Cleanup and enable all the options as well in the extra section delete all but the last restore point.



(e-mail address removed)



in message A program complained that there wasn't enough space on C:, so I had a
look. I found that directory
C:/WINDOWS/
Installer/
$PatchCache$/
Managed/
84514B.../ (a very long filename)
8.0.50727/

has 2310 files (read-only) using 1.59GB of space!

Most of the filenames begin with "FL_".
All of these have a modification date of Sept 23, 2005 at various
times.
A bunch of files which begin wih "COMPONENT_" have a modification date
of April 11, 2005.

Is this normal? Where did these files come from? Is it safe to try to
get rid of them?