Blue Files

  • Thread starter Thread starter George-NY
  • Start date Start date
G

George-NY

Happy New Year All.
My question is when I open Windows Explorer and click on C drive then click
on Windows there is a list of blue files like ($NtUninstalKB956802$) and I
would like to know if most of them can be deleted as they take up a lot of
disk space.
Any information is appreciated.
George - NY
 
From: "George-NY" <[email protected]>

| Happy New Year All.
| My question is when I open Windows Explorer and click on C drive then click
| on Windows there is a list of blue files like ($NtUninstalKB956802$) and I
| would like to know if most of them can be deleted as they take up a lot of
| disk space.
| Any information is appreciated.
| George - NY


Files and folders listed in Blue are compressd files and folders.

Folders such as; $NtUninstalKB956802$ represent installed updates/HotFixes. They are
compressed to save space.

List these folfers in full details such that you can see their respective dates. Then
sort them on the dates.

You can delete them if they are at least two weeks old. Keeping these uninstaller folders
will allow you to uninstall an update/HotFix if you find their respective installation
didn't go well and you want to bring their condition back to what they were prior to the
update they represent.
 
George-NY said:
Happy New Year All.
My question is when I open Windows Explorer and click on C drive then click
on Windows there is a list of blue files like ($NtUninstalKB956802$) and I
would like to know if most of them can be deleted as they take up a lot of
disk space.
Any information is appreciated.
George - NY

Blue files/folders are compressed. $NtUninstalKB.. files are Windows
updates. You can delete those folders, I guess, if your system is
stable. It won't affect the updates, just the ability to remove them.
 
The $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$ folders and associated files in these
folders are created during each Windows Update that is installed
on your PC and are safe to remove if you do not plan to uninstall
any security or hotfix updates.

However once deleted you will no longer be able to un-install
a patch or update that was associated with the deleted folder/files.
I would keep the most recent set (last two months just in case) of folders
and delete the older updates.
Note: As a safety net I burned these folders to a CD before deleting them.

They are Blue in color because you have "compression" turned on and
Windows compresses files and folders (NTFS partition) that are not
accessed very often, explorer shows these files/folders in blue.

Other folders that may be on your hard drive:
$NtServicePackUninstallIDNMitigationAPIs$
$NtServicePackUninstallNLSDownlevelMapping$
Created if and when you installed IE7.
If you delete them you will no longer be able to uninstall IE7

$NtServicePackUninstall$
Created when you install a service pack.
If you are currently using XP with SP2
then if you remove the folder you can no longer
uninstall SP2. When and if you install SP3 this folder will be
deleted and replaced by a new SP3 $NtServicePackUninstall$
folder to be used if you uninstall SP3.
If you have already installed SP3 then I would leave
this folder as is until you are certain that no bugs have
cropped up after installing SP3.
Note: Once you delete this folder you are stuck with SP3

Warning: One folder you should not delete is: $hf_mig$
(and any folders that are part of/contained in $hf_mig$)
It is a necessary folder for future updates

Also See Doug Knox's page on this issue:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

And:
Is it safe to delete the $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$ folders:
http://www.pagestart.com/ntuninstall.html
 
George

Others have provided good answers to your direct question. What follows
may help with the underlying reason for your question.

You can create more free space in C by
carrying any of the measures suggested below.

The default allocation to System Restore is 12% on your C partition
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click your My
Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore. Place the cursor
on your C drive select Settings but this time find the slider and drag
it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the
Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary internet
files, especially if you do not store offline copies on disk. The
default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to offline
copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer select
Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files, Settings to
make the change. At the same time look at the number of days history is
held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

If your drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises with
your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory of
your C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in your Windows
folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and $NtUninstallKB282010$
etc. These files may be compressed or not compressed. If compressed
the text of the folder name appears in blue characters. If not
compressed you can compress them. Right click on each folder and
select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box before Compress
contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you can see the amount
gained by deducting the size on disk from the size. Folder
compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive / partition.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Information, Tools, Dr Watson and verify that the box before "Append to
existing log" is NOT checked. This means the next time the log is
written it will overwrite rather than add to the existing file.

The default maximum size setting for Event Viewer logs is too large.
Reset the maximum for each log from 512 kb to 128 kb and set it to
overwrite.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us


Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
JS

Not very often? Rarely to never?


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Thank You all for the great suggestions. This was my first post here and
you guys are great.

Thanks Again.

George - NY
 
JS

That is what you said. The reality is you would only access the file
once to uninstall and more likely never.

--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Now I get your drift.
You're right for most users, it is more like never.
But some peek at the contents
 
JS

Trying to peek at the contents is a waste of time as they will soon
discover. The main file is an exe file and I doubt that most users know
how to look inside. I don't. Do you?


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
The .exe file is the uninstaller.
The .txt file read like a .bat command file
The .inf will identify why type of fix (QFE or GDR)
You will notice that recent updates for SP2 users all take the QFE branch.
The file updates and registry changes are also there for the pickins.
 
You're welcome.
Here is more info, if you care to read.
Description of the contents of Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server
2003 software update packages:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824994

SP3 ensures that your PC's software is located on the General Distribution
Release (GDR) branch of patches rather than the Quick Fix Engineering (QFE)
branch.
 
As for "blue" files, in my my docs folder, just for my edifcation, please ...
more than half of the items are blue in color, even minor things lkike word
doc letters I have written ... because they are blue in color (not black)
does that mean that they are compressed? Even dinky 4-paragraph letters? And
it that all the blue color means?
 
delcash said:
As for "blue" files, in my my docs folder, just for my edifcation,
please ... more than half of the items are blue in color, even minor
things lkike word doc letters I have written ... because they are
blue in color (not black) does that mean that they are compressed?
Even dinky 4-paragraph letters? And it that all the blue color means?

Yes. Windows will compress files that aren't used in a long time to
save space. Actually, the smaller files can save a LOT of space when
they're compressed if there are many of them. Windows doesn't make any
decisions on them; it just compresses them if they're old.
It won't hurt anything and they will decompress the next time you use
them.

Regards,

Twayne
 
delcash said:
As for "blue" files, in my my docs folder, just for my edifcation, please ...
more than half of the items are blue in color, even minor things lkike word
doc letters I have written ... because they are blue in color (not black)
does that mean that they are compressed? Even dinky 4-paragraph letters? And
it that all the blue color means?

Yes.
 

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