Deleting service pack 1 update

[Guest]

It seems to me that I have two copies of alot of the files that came with the service pack updates, and I am wondering if I can delete one of the sets of files. One set of files is located at c:\i386 and the second is located at c:\windows\servicepackfiles. It appears to me that when I did the service pack update that the files from the update replaced files in the i386 directory. Perhaps I am being a little to demanding but the service pack update takes up 235 MBs on my hard drive, out of only 20 gigs. Can someone tell me what I can delete or tell me where to go to find out what I can delete. Any help is much appreciated

 

[Phil \(purplehaz\)]

If you have an oem machine and do not have a real XP cd (ie: a restore or
recovery cd), then leave those folders alone. They are needed for
reinstallation of xp if ever needed.
If you have a real XP cd, the then i386 folder can be deleted.

 

[Alex Nichol]

It seems to me that I have two copies of alot of the files that came with the service pack updates, and I am wondering if I can delete one of the sets of files. One set of files is located at c:\i386 and the second is located at c:\windows\servicepackfiles. It appears to me that when I did the service pack update that the files from the update replaced files in the i386 directory.

c:\i386 are the files from which Windows was initially installed. If
you have a proper CD of the system (with an i386 folder on it) rather
than some OEM restore disk, you certainly do not need them on Hard disk:
if you do not have such a CD, I would burn them to one myself.

Windows\ServicePackFIles was put there on installing SP1. It contains
the service pack file versions for use in preference to ones from the
original CD if needed by File Protection/SFC/New Hardware etc. On an
NTFS drive a useful amount of space can be saved by compressing it.
What you can do if you have a CD burner is burn the complete folder to a
CD, then run regedit.exe and at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

Change the value of ServicePackSourcePath in the right pane to reflect
the drive. Best if you have 2 drives, and can have the original
SourcePath on one and this on the other