Remove Windows XP Service Pack 1a and other Hotfix items

[GreenTea]

Hello

After I applied all service packs and critical hotfixes,
everything running real good. No crash nor warnings
for more than two weeks.

My system is rather antique IBM notebook which my son gave me.
XP is sometimes slow but steady what I do using this PC.

Only trouble is very small HD, 6Gb.
To make more room I deleted unnecessary programs and files.
I noticed there are many entries of paches for XP in
"add remove programs" in Control Panel.

Can I delete these Service Pack 1a and hotfixes ?
I believe these are archived old files.

Thanks in advance.

Green Tea

 

[Tom Porterfield]

Hello

After I applied all service packs and critical hotfixes,
everything running real good. No crash nor warnings
for more than two weeks.

My system is rather antique IBM notebook which my son gave me.
XP is sometimes slow but steady what I do using this PC.

Only trouble is very small HD, 6Gb.
To make more room I deleted unnecessary programs and files.
I noticed there are many entries of paches for XP in
"add remove programs" in Control Panel.

Can I delete these Service Pack 1a and hotfixes ?
I believe these are archived old files.

You can delete them, but not through Add or Remove Programs. The files
that were replaced during the install of the service pack or hotfix are
archived in folders in your Windows folder. Look in there and you will
see a number of folders with names like $NtUninstallKB823980$. These
folders are hidden so you will need explorer configured to show hidden
files and folders to see them. These contain the backup files for the
hotfixes. If you are sure you will never remove the hotfix then you can
delete the folders. You may want to save them off to CD or DVD if you
have a burner first as backup.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Set folder options/view tab to see hidden and system folders. Look under
C:\Windows for the $NtUninstallServicePackFiles$ and $NtUninstallQxxxxxx$
folders. You can safely delete these, all you will lose is the ability to
uninstall them. You will also find a "Service Pack Files" directory which
you should NOT delete, as this is the backup of the updated files installed
with the service pack. If a copy in use is corrupted, it will look to this
directory for a new copy.

Afterwards, you can select each hotfix listing under Add & Remove for
change/remove. You will get an error message followed by an offer to remove
it from the listings. You can automate this process if you like using the
utility available from MVP Doug Knox on his site www.dougknox.com, look
under the WinXP Utilities.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[GreenTea]

Thanks Tom

I just removed hot fixitems and kept service pack 1a for a while.
Later I will try to remove it if I need more spaces in my HD.
Thanks again.

Green Tea

 

[GreenTea]

Thanks Rick

I went to www.dougknox.com, and used his utility.
Thanks again.

Green tea

 

[Alex Nichol]

My system is rather antique IBM notebook which my son gave me.
XP is sometimes slow but steady what I do using this PC.

Only trouble is very small HD, 6Gb.
To make more room I deleted unnecessary programs and files.
I noticed there are many entries of paches for XP in
"add remove programs" in Control Panel.

Can I delete these Service Pack 1a and hotfixes ?
I believe these are archived old files.

Look in the Windows folder (with Hidden files visible) and you can
delete the $NTUninstallQnnnnnn$ folders, referring to Hotfix nnnnnn and
any $NTServicePackUninstall folder (the SP1 uninstall one). There is
also a folder ServicePackFiles - this 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 CD drives, and can have the original
SourcePath on one and this on the other