Minimizing c:\windows\Installer

[Dave]

Hi,
I'm running on a relatively small (75 GB avail) SSD and I noticed that
c:\windows\installer is about 7 to 8 GB on my system. Is there a way to get
rid of most of this? I've read a bit on-line about this and I've downloaded
the Windows Installer Cleanup tool but I just want to get rid of unused
files, something like what vp1cln.exe that cleaned up after installing Vista
SP1 did.

I'm using Windows 7 RC x64. TIA.

 

[Malcolm McCaffery]

Basically you could delete the contents but shouldn't:

-Uninstalls of applications would fail
-Application upgrades would probably fail (when trying to uninstall previous
versions) etc
-Repairs/using certain features of applications could possibly fail

However in some cases there are files there that are 'orphaned' i.e. they
refer to applications not currently installed. To safely remove those
download windows installer cleanup utility

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/en-us

And in it the tool MSIZAP is included.

Run a command prompt as administrator, and from command line run the tool

msizap.exe G!

(it should install into C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Installer Clean Up\
on 64 bit windows.

regards,

Malcolm.

 

[Dave]

Malcolm, Thank you....I had tried your suggestion of executing msizap.exe G!
and this is what I got:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Installer Clean Up>msizap.exe G!
MsiZapInfo: Performing operations for user
S-1-5-21-1968912223-3946154492-405177
5009-1000
Removing orphaned cached files.
No product/patch data was found.

Does that mean that there were no orphans?

Would it be possible to save the c:\Windows\Installer folder on my external
hard drive or other location and then just restore it when I need to do
uninstall, etc?

TIA