C drive bloat: $hf_mig$ folder??

[John Vinson]

I've been having problems with my C: drive filling up. I've
partitioned my disk to provide a 4Gbyte C drive, with the intent of
using it ONLY for Windows - software installs are on E, Internet temp
files on H, data on F and so on.

This is being defeated by... *stuff*... filling up the C disk. Last
night I foolishly installed Chinese language support in IE6 (there was
a Chinese-language webpage with information about my missionary
ancestors...) and now I'm running out of room.

I deleted five Chinese-language fonts from the Fonts folder; but in
exploring the disk, I find a hidden folder named C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig%
containing 65MByte, in folders named KB873333 and such like: clearly
Windows Update information.

Two questions:

- Can these files be safely deleted?
- If not, can they be safely moved to my (much bigger) H drive? and if
so, do I have to tweak the registry to let Windows know where they
are?

And, once I've installed Chinese language support, is there any way to
uninstall it (other than the brute force method I used)?

John W. Vinson jvinson *at* WysardOfInfo *dot* com

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

I deleted five Chinese-language fonts from the Fonts folder; but in
exploring the disk, I find a hidden folder named C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig%
containing 65MByte, in folders named KB873333 and such like: clearly
Windows Update information.

Two questions:

- Can these files be safely deleted?
- If not, can they be safely moved to my (much bigger) H drive? and if
so, do I have to tweak the registry to let Windows know where they
are?

You should not delete the folder and you cannot move it: "Description
of the contents of Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003
software update packages" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=824994).

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

I've been having problems with my C: drive filling up. I've
partitioned my disk to provide a 4Gbyte C drive, with the intent of
using it ONLY for Windows - software installs are on E, Internet temp
files on H, data on F and so on.

This is being defeated by... *stuff*... filling up the C disk. Last
night I foolishly installed Chinese language support in IE6 (there was
a Chinese-language webpage with information about my missionary
ancestors...) and now I'm running out of room.

I deleted five Chinese-language fonts from the Fonts folder; but in
exploring the disk, I find a hidden folder named C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig%
containing 65MByte, in folders named KB873333 and such like: clearly
Windows Update information.

Two questions:

- Can these files be safely deleted?

No, you should not delete the contents in the folder $hf_mig$.

More here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824994

- If not, can they be safely moved to my (much bigger) H drive? and if
so, do I have to tweak the registry to let Windows know where they
are?

I don't think this is possible.

And, once I've installed Chinese language support, is there any way to
uninstall it (other than the brute force method I used)?

I don't know.

 

[John Vinson]

I don't think this is possible.

:-{(

Thanks, Torgeir and Thorsten. I guess it's time to either Freeman the
disk and reinstall, or get out BootItNG and expand my C drive...
there's not much on there that I can remove.



John W. Vinson jvinson *at* WysardOfInfo *dot* com

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

Thanks, Torgeir and Thorsten.

You are welcome.