What is file "$NTUninstallKBnnnnnn"?

[Daniel Schaffer]

Hi,

My hard drive has in its WINNT folder about 30 files which take the form
"$NTUninstallKBnnnnnn"$, where the "n"s are numbers. The oldest shows the
date January, 2006 and the newest April, 2007.

My computer works perfectly, running WinXP Pro, SP2. What I would like to
know is if I can delete these files, or move them to an archive. It's just a
question of cleaning up my C: drive.

Many thanks in advance,

Dan S

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

My hard drive has in its WINNT folder about 30 files which take the
form "$NTUninstallKBnnnnnn"$, where the "n"s are numbers. The oldest
shows the date January, 2006 and the newest April, 2007.

My computer works perfectly, running WinXP Pro, SP2. What I would like
to know is if I can delete these files, or move them to an archive.
It's just a question of cleaning up my C: drive.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

 

[peter]

These files are the uninstall files for any XP updates that you have done
via the update site.
If all of your updates are functioning properly and you have no intention of
ever uninstalling any then yes you can delete those files....I do it 30 days
after an update.
peter

 

[JS]

They are the MS Updates that have been installed on your PC over time.
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

 

[Daniel Schaffer]

Many thanks to Detlev, Peter and JS.
By the way, what is the file $hf_mig$, the one I mustn't remove?
Dan

 

[JS]

Description of the contents of Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824994/en-us

Scroll down to the bottom of this KB article under the Notes section, the
4th bulleted item.

Note that this folder appears to be updated each time Windows Updates and
hotfix patches are applied. So you will see a complete history of your
updates and what appears to be the actual update files. I also suspect but
can not confirm that Windows Updates site also looks at the contents of this
folder to determine what updates you require.

JS

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Many thanks to Detlev, Peter and JS.
By the way, what is the file $hf_mig$, the one I mustn't remove?

Explained in MS KB824994 as already posted by "JS".