Directories and Files Beginning with $

[Steve Behman]

There are well over 100 directories (containing thousands of files) whose
name begins with $. Most of these include something about uninstall.

Since I am well beyond uninstalling many things on my system I would like to
know if these may be deleted because for all I can see they are useless to me.

Is this dangerous?

 

[JS]

The $NtUninstall* 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.

$NtServicePackUninstallIDNMitigationAPIs$
$NtServicePackUninstallNLSDownlevelMapping$
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 grows in
size as it will contain both SP2 and SP3 uninstall files.
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

JS
www.pagestart.com

 

[Twayne]

There are well over 100 directories (containing thousands of files)

whose name begins with $. Most of these include something about
uninstall.

Since I am well beyond uninstalling many things on my system I would
like to know if these may be deleted because for all I can see they
are useless to me.

Is this dangerous?

No, it is not dangerous to the health of the sytem. It's unlikely
you'll ever want them again, I agree, but just to be onthe safe side, I
compress them and unload them to a CD. If nothing else it gives me a
list of the KB articles involved in the update trail. IMO it's best to
be a packrat; keep stuff but move it out of sight, like to a CD/DVD.