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How to Safely Perform a Windows Installer Folder Cleanup [5 Ways]
Added better error capturing around the move logic. Disk space is vital for the running of programs. Aristos Aristos 7 7 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. You can use a link to move it to a HDD if you have one.
Clean windows 10 installer folder free download
I have been working with computers for 22 years. Hi WinTechie ,. The installer files are a record of file versions and registry dependencies involved in a particular application or application update installation. The availability of this record in the cache helps to uninstall and update applications properly.
If the reply was helpful please don’t forget to upvote or accept as answer , thank you. Deleting files from the WinSxS folder or deleting the entire WinSxS folder may severely damage your system so that your PC might not boot and make it impossible to update. And only today I found an old Microsoft post from , claiming that they will try doing something with this… Three years ago now. I hope sth will be done in Win 10 with that….
I really recommend checking it out. A little time has passed but I wondered if anyone else had this issue after using the WICleanup utility. After deleting about 4. Many of the undates have date stamps going back to Does one simply ignore those or what? I had just done an update check so I know none of these were necessary prior to deleting the Installer files.
Just group select then click in any of the selected files check box. All will become checked. Delete away. Completely retarded. I also have the same problem. I found the solution as follows: goto wicleanup directory run wicleanup commandline version with -s silent option. It will delete all the orphaned files without any further prompt.
Thanks… not only did running from command line work… it took mere seconds. Thank you for the great tip! My folder was about 7GB and now is only 1. It is but the program is in English, just translate the page or click a download button on the right hand side of the webpage. Working on a friends computer. She had THX a Million! Got a long list of files with total 1. Deleted them all. Are you sure your original folder size was 18GB???
You have to install a hell of a lot of software to get anywhere near that size Installer folder. Raymond and I have both just tested WICleanup again and it worked fine on my Win 7 64bit and his Win 7 32bit deleting what it said it would.
This is most useful. This is a file folder I had not investigated till now and find it 2. The WICleanup app could use a select all button -. Thanks for the post. My Installer folder was about 7GB. Thanks a lot Raymond! So the total size of the Installer folder is stil under a 1GB and I have been using this installation for quite some time now.
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Consulting 5 years ago. Sam 5 years ago. Step 4: In the next window, choose C from the drop-down menu and click Scan. Then the program will automatically scan the selected drive. Step 5: After a while, you will receive the result.
Expand the Windows folder to find the Installer folder. Likewise, you can expand the Installer folder to display its content. You can find the target files by using. Step 6: Right-click on the unused. You can also create a symbolic link to save space in the Windows Installer folder. The whole process is divided into 3 stages. You can finish the operation by following these stages one by one.
Generally speaking, the Windows Installer folder remains hidden by default. Here you need to unhide it. Here are steps for doing that. Press Windows and E keys to open File Explorer. Click on the View tab, and then click Options and Change folder and search options. In the Folder Options window, click on the View tab and uncheck the Hide protected operating system files recommended option. Mark the Show hidden files, folders, and drivers option and click OK to save the changes.
You can copy the whole Windows Installer folder and then paste it to another drive, and then delete files in the folder. This operation can avoid some issues caused by file deletion. The time required for copying and pasting the folder depends on the size of this folder. To do that, find the Windows Installer folder on your computer, and then right-click on it and choose the Copy option in the elevated menu.
Generally these files are important as during updating, patching or uninstalling software it will use the. If you blanketly delete all the files in this folder, you will find yourself needing to rebuild windows. Over time as your computer is patched and patched again, these installer files become outdated and orphaned. They are no longer required, but they can take up many gigabytes of data. HomeDev has had many queries about how PatchCleaner works and if it can be trusted to do the right thing.
Its pretty simple. The windows operating system holds a list of current installers and patches, that can be accessed via WMI calls, Windows Management Instrumentation. Anything that is in the folder but not on the windows provided list is considered an orphaned file and is tagged to be moved or deleted.
HomeDev cannot warrant that PatchCleaner will not find a false positive and delete a required patch which is why we have added the filter feature to filter and recommend using the move function, that way you can always copy the patches back if required.
Please see the Known Issues List at the bottom of the page. The process will write the output to the console window and also logs the messages to the windows event log.
To stop PatchCleaner from being detected as malware would require purchase of an SSL certificate and digitally signing the software. PatchCleaner on Softpedia. Some people have encountered some installaton challenges when attempting to install. If you hit problems then I suggest you try the following. So you can actually open the. Version 1. There is a known issue in previous versions where PatchCleaner falsely identifies Adobe Acrobat Reader patches as not being required.
Adobe do something proprietary when it comes to their automatic updating such that if PatchCleaner removes the “orphaned” patches from the installer directory, Adobe Reader automatic updates will no longer successfully install.
This completed successfully. Windows update with reboots also ran successfully after making the above changes. I will write back if anything doesn’t work. There is no official way to kill it. You can use a link to move it to a HDD if you have one. You can try a junction by copying the files to the new drive, then renaming the old installer folder temporarily, creating a junction from the default folder to the new.
Then test things for a bit before deleting the renamed installer folder. Maybe install a bigger more complex program like visual studio, or adobe Photoshop, then uninstall it just to make sure all is well. But be forewarned, if anything goes wrong, you might not be able to install or re-install programs. Been there, done that. I lost a lot of information’s that windows cache there. One it was the icons of the programs links. And many program links left with out an icon. The size off all that directories are very small – so for me, you have to keep that directories with a GUID as name – and delete the rest.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Start collaborating and sharing organizational knowledge. Create a free Team Why Teams? Learn more about Teams. How can I free up drive space from the Windows installer folder without killing Windows? Ask Question. Asked 8 years, 7 months ago. Modified 4 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. DeepSpace DeepSpace 8, 12 12 gold badges 43 43 silver badges 47 47 bronze badges.
I had the problem in Windows 8, and the temporary solution was to upgrade to 8. But the problem crept up again, with the continual patching of 8. This is an annoying problem from Windows since XP.