Marsha said:
Hello, this is probably well known, just not to me.
I upgraded an XP laptop a couple of months ago from SP1 (which was
upgraded from RTM) to SP2. Everything works just fine.
S, I no longer care about having in the add/remove programs "uninstall
SP2" and I'd like to get rid of all the old, no longer needed system
files (there
are lots of $NTServicePackUninstall and there is a directory
ServicePackFiles, etc.)
Is there a straightforward way to get rid of what's no longer needed?
Tidying up after installing SP2 (from MVP Alex Nichol):
"Installing SP2 leaves a lot of space on hard disk taken up by files you
would only ever need if you were to uninstall it. Once you are sure you
are happy with it:
"A very big restore point will have been made. Once a new regular size
one has been made in the ordinary way, clean up by going to Start - All
Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup and in 'More
Options' click the bottom button to remove all but the most recent
restore point.
"Delete the hidden folder of files that would be restored by an
Uninstall: C:\Windows\$NTServicePackUninstall. Once done, if you try to
use the 'Remove' for Service pack 2 in Add/remove programs, that will
fail and offer to remove itself.
"There may also be a large folder C
\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download depending on how you did the
installation. That can also be deleted.
"Check that the installation's temporary folder did get properly removed
- it will be on the drive where you downloaded the setup files, so
probably C: and have a long name of random letters. If it is still
around, delete it. And burn the downloaded file to a CD so as to have
it if you ever need to reinstall.
"There will also be a large folder C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles. Do not
delete this - it will be used in future by Windows File Protection -
but on an NTFS disk you can compress it to save about 200MB of disk
space. R-click on it, Properties, click the Advanced button, and select
'Compress'."
HTH,
Malke
