$NtUninstall folders

[Guest]

I'm running XP Pro. In my Windows folder there are over 90 folders that
begin with $NtUninstallKB... Some are over 4MB and date back over 2 years.
What's the story with these and can they be delted?

 

[Jim]

I'm running XP Pro. In my Windows folder there are over 90 folders that
begin with $NtUninstallKB... Some are over 4MB and date back over 2 years.
What's the story with these and can they be delted?

NT = Windows NT 5.1 (aka XP)
Uninstall = fix removal information
KB = Knowledge base article which describs a particular patch.

Only you know whether these uninstall programs will ever be needed. It is
rather unlikely though.
You can copy them to a CD just in case.

Jim

 

[Ken Blake]

I'm running XP Pro. In my Windows folder there are over 90 folders
that begin with $NtUninstallKB... Some are over 4MB

Four million may be a lot of dollars, but when it comes to bytes, it's
really *tiny*. At today's disk prices, it's well under a single penny's
worth.

and date back
over 2 years. What's the story with these and can they be delted?

They are the uninstall files for the Windows updates you've been installing.
You can delete them, but if you do, you can never uninstall the updates they
are for.

It's certainly unlikely that you will ever need to remove these updates,
especially the older ones. On the other hand, they take up a tiny amount of
disk space, and I recommend leaving them alone (just in case) unless you
need that small amount of extra disk space.

 

[JS]

These folders and associated files in these folders are safe to remove,
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.
As a safety net I burned these folders to a CD before deleting them.

Warning: One folder you should not delete is: $hf_mig$

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

JS