wolfko Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 (edited) I am on Win10 and my c drive is a 120 GB SSD. With every Win update and every installation of an app or program the free space on the drive is getting smaller and smaller (although all new installations are aiming to another drive), currently being at around 3.5 GB, which can drop to under 1 GB for one or two days after a Win update, which sometimes is not enough space for the system to run properly. I have now checked that my installer-folder (C/Windows/Installer) is "bloated" up to over 70 (!!) GB, containing mainly msi and msp files dated from 2006 up to present. Does anybody know, which of these files I can safely delete? All the internet sources I have found regarding this issue so far are only providing kind of useless advises like "before you delete these files, make sure they are not needed by your system". Is there a way to check, which of these files are still needed by my system and which I can safely delete. Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks, Wolfgang Edited October 15, 2022 by wolfko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 I can't imagine there's any need to have any msi or msp files that are in your installer folder, as they only contain the files to install programs, updates etc, not the actual exe files. I think you'd be pretty safe in deleting all the msi and msp files in that folder. I'd keep any exe files though. The only downside might be a need to re-download an installer that W10 might need in the future but with updates happening all the time the ca\hances of an msi being current aren't that great anyway. As a test I just cut all my Installer folder content out to a temp folder in another drive, so the C Drive folder is empty now. It'll be interesting to see if there are any issues. My money is on none at all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulb Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 1 hour ago, John Dow said: As a test I just cut all my Installer folder content out to a temp folder in another drive, so the C Drive folder is empty now. It'll be interesting to see if there are any issues. That's exactly what I do. Move everything out of the folder and into a folder on another drive (usually an eternal SSD). If everything still works on the pc then problem solved . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 (edited) Hi Wolfgang C:\Windows\Installer is where Windows Installer stores cached copies of the setup packages (.msi) and setup patches (.msp) used for your currently installed programs. These files are required if you want to update, modify, or uninstall a program on your computer. They should not be randomly deleted as they are also referenced by entries in the registry. Without the appropriate .msi or .msp file and the registry entry, you will find that it is impossible to update, modify or delete programs on your computer. The best advice I know of is to proceed with a great deal of caution and most importantly do not try to do this by hand. The only ones that I know that can be safely removed (deletion by hand is not recommended because of the registry entry which also needs to be concurrently removed) are so called orphaned .msi or .msp files. Usually these are left behind from a failed installation You might find the following link instructive to give you some guidance on how to go about cleaning up this installation folder The best advice I can give though is to use extreme caution with any of these methods . I have never tried any of them ( I use the windows refresh approach and it keeps my system running well) and therefore cannot in good faith recommend them to you. https://www.raymond.cc/blog/safely-delete-unused-msi-and-mst-files-from-windows-installer-folder/ And just to remember, even after you have moved them to another location (recommended in the above article) your machine should still boot up normally. There is an important caveat to this .... However you will not know if what you have done is successful or not, until you attempt to update, change or uninstall a program. This is one of those annoying things in windows that unfortunately can cause all kinds of difficult to solve issues when it goes wrong as your computer will run normally until you attempt to modify/delete an existing application in some way. If it were me , I would try doing a windows refresh . This is a link below that I use as I have found this fellow to be very solid It will take you approximately half an hour or so to do. It will simply give you an new win10 installation, while keeping all your settings , files and data for all your existing applications. I find anymore that life is just too short to mess around with a lot of this stuff (and especially then trying to fix the problems that arise) Instead I have found that doing a windows refresh is firstly very safe, easy to do and generally fixes a multitude of issues . I would recommend it to anyone as a periodic maintenance item that is easy to do on any win10/11 machine. Hope this is of some help Cheers Pete Edited October 15, 2022 by renault 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 (edited) Hi again Wolfgang Sorry just one more add to my note Dammed cat just jumped on my keyboard as I was typing This is a Microsoft article that contains some good information that you might also wish to try to reduce the size of the cache using the DISM.exe program which comes with every windows installation I have also used DISM to reduce the size of the component store. It is very easy to do Use the /StartComponentCleanup parameter In the article where MS refers to use an elevated command prompt, they mean open a Dos window using administrator mode (In the search bar type cmd and then select Administrator) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder?view=windows-11 This may take some time to complete and even when it appears to stop , just let it run And lastly here is an article from Microsoft on the advisability of deleting files from the installer directory It is very old (2012) but still I feel gives useful background to the above https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/joscon/can-you-safely-delete-files-in-the-windirinstaller-directory So just to summarize steps that I would suggest you try .... 1) Use DISM to reduce/cleanup the component store first 2) Then do a win10/win11 system refresh. Aside from fixing issues, I've found personally that it tends to keep my machine running in a "like new" condition. Cheers Pete Edited October 15, 2022 by renault 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 Hello, SSDs are no longer very expensive, so perhaps the best solution would be to leave Windows alone and buy a larger drive? there is a 240GB SSD on Amazon at the moment for under £23, or under 27 euros. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullfox Posted October 15, 2022 Share Posted October 15, 2022 There are 2tb SSBs available for a little over $100.00. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfko Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 On 10/15/2022 at 2:54 PM, John Dow said: I can't imagine there's any need to have any msi or msp files that are in your installer folder, as they only contain the files to install programs, updates etc, not the actual exe files. I think you'd be pretty safe in deleting all the msi and msp files in that folder. I'd keep any exe files though. The only downside might be a need to re-download an installer that W10 might need in the future but with updates happening all the time the ca\hances of an msi being current aren't that great anyway. As a test I just cut all my Installer folder content out to a temp folder in another drive, so the C Drive folder is empty now. It'll be interesting to see if there are any issues. My money is on none at all. On 10/15/2022 at 4:50 PM, paulb said: That's exactly what I do. Move everything out of the folder and into a folder on another drive (usually an eternal SSD). If everything still works on the pc then problem solved . On 10/15/2022 at 5:23 PM, renault said: Hi Wolfgang C:\Windows\Installer is where Windows Installer stores cached copies of the setup packages (.msi) and setup patches (.msp) used for your currently installed programs. These files are required if you want to update, modify, or uninstall a program on your computer. They should not be randomly deleted as they are also referenced by entries in the registry. Without the appropriate .msi or .msp file and the registry entry, you will find that it is impossible to update, modify or delete programs on your computer. The best advice I know of is to proceed with a great deal of caution and most importantly do not try to do this by hand. The only ones that I know that can be safely removed (deletion by hand is not recommended because of the registry entry which also needs to be concurrently removed) are so called orphaned .msi or .msp files. Usually these are left behind from a failed installation You might find the following link instructive to give you some guidance on how to go about cleaning up this installation folder The best advice I can give though is to use extreme caution with any of these methods . I have never tried any of them ( I use the windows refresh approach and it keeps my system running well) and therefore cannot in good faith recommend them to you. https://www.raymond.cc/blog/safely-delete-unused-msi-and-mst-files-from-windows-installer-folder/ And just to remember, even after you have moved them to another location (recommended in the above article) your machine should still boot up normally. There is an important caveat to this .... However you will not know if what you have done is successful or not, until you attempt to update, change or uninstall a program. This is one of those annoying things in windows that unfortunately can cause all kinds of difficult to solve issues when it goes wrong as your computer will run normally until you attempt to modify/delete an existing application in some way. If it were me , I would try doing a windows refresh . This is a link below that I use as I have found this fellow to be very solid It will take you approximately half an hour or so to do. It will simply give you an new win10 installation, while keeping all your settings , files and data for all your existing applications. I find anymore that life is just too short to mess around with a lot of this stuff (and especially then trying to fix the problems that arise) Instead I have found that doing a windows refresh is firstly very safe, easy to do and generally fixes a multitude of issues . I would recommend it to anyone as a periodic maintenance item that is easy to do on any win10/11 machine. Hope this is of some help Cheers Pete On 10/15/2022 at 5:48 PM, renault said: Hi again Wolfgang Sorry just one more add to my note Dammed cat just jumped on my keyboard as I was typing This is a Microsoft article that contains some good information that you might also wish to try to reduce the size of the cache using the DISM.exe program which comes with every windows installation I have also used DISM to reduce the size of the component store. It is very easy to do Use the /StartComponentCleanup parameter In the article where MS refers to use an elevated command prompt, they mean open a Dos window using administrator mode (In the search bar type cmd and then select Administrator) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder?view=windows-11 This may take some time to complete and even when it appears to stop , just let it run And lastly here is an article from Microsoft on the advisability of deleting files from the installer directory It is very old (2012) but still I feel gives useful background to the above https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/joscon/can-you-safely-delete-files-in-the-windirinstaller-directory So just to summarize steps that I would suggest you try .... 1) Use DISM to reduce/cleanup the component store first 2) Then do a win10/win11 system refresh. Aside from fixing issues, I've found personally that it tends to keep my machine running in a "like new" condition. Cheers Pete On 10/15/2022 at 9:02 PM, Nick Cooper said: Hello, SSDs are no longer very expensive, so perhaps the best solution would be to leave Windows alone and buy a larger drive? there is a 240GB SSD on Amazon at the moment for under £23, or under 27 euros. On 10/15/2022 at 9:22 PM, Bullfox said: There are 2tb SSBs available for a little over $100.00. Thanks again guys for your responds. Weekend is here and I now have time to think about your suggestions and to try the one or other. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 I put all my files back because quite a few icons on the desktop changed to default style so the files are obviously referenced by Windows 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingfish55 Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 On 10/15/2022 at 4:48 PM, renault said: Hi again Wolfgang Sorry just one more add to my note Dammed cat just jumped on my keyboard as I was typing This is a Microsoft article that contains some good information that you might also wish to try to reduce the size of the cache using the DISM.exe program which comes with every windows installation I have also used DISM to reduce the size of the component store. It is very easy to do Use the /StartComponentCleanup parameter In the article where MS refers to use an elevated command prompt, they mean open a Dos window using administrator mode (In the search bar type cmd and then select Administrator) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder?view=windows-11 This may take some time to complete and even when it appears to stop , just let it run And lastly here is an article from Microsoft on the advisability of deleting files from the installer directory It is very old (2012) but still I feel gives useful background to the above https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/joscon/can-you-safely-delete-files-in-the-windirinstaller-directory So just to summarize steps that I would suggest you try .... 1) Use DISM to reduce/cleanup the component store first 2) Then do a win10/win11 system refresh. Aside from fixing issues, I've found personally that it tends to keep my machine running in a "like new" condition. Cheers Pete Was it Cat 1, 2 or 3 landing? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 8 hours ago, flyingfish55 said: Was it Cat 1, 2 or 3 landing? "Belly flop" You love him to death, but he's not the brightest lightbulb on the Christmas Tree. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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