Delete Temp Files from Upgrade?

A few weeks ago I upgraded my notebook from Win XP to Win XP SP2, and I think during the upgrade a bunch of (40 to 50) folders were created in my Windows directory.

In Explorer they show up in blue font and have names like "$NtUninstallKB867597$ ".

Inside the folders there are sub filder with names such as "spuninst" - and in each of these sub folders there are file names usch as spuninst.exe, spuninst.inf, spuninst.txt updspapi.dll

I imagine these are temp? uninstall files so should I just leave them alone or to regain some (needed) drive space can I safely delete them (or I could save them on an external drive or DVD-R.

The Win XP SP2 seems to be working fine for these past couple of weeks.

Thanks and regards.

 

The files are there in case you want to uninstall any one of the updates.

Your computer has been running O.K. for the two weeks?

You can delete all of them but note that you will not be able to uninstall them after getting rid of the files. I usually get rid of them after a week or so when I have decided that nothing was hurt from the update.

 

Thanks Bmoore1129 - yes my PC seems to working fine these past couple of weeks after the upgrade.

What about moving/storing these folders on a CD, then if the (unlikley) need comes up in the next month or two I can copy them back to the Windows directory and proceed with any necessary uninstalls?

 

I have never heard of anyone doing that but sounds like it is feasible to me.....

 

Hello Gemo,

Good idea I do the same.

Regards - Charles

 

Saving them on a cd and copying them back would probably work but if you ever try it (using the copies on the cd to uninstall) I'd suggest you first remove the read only attribute they'll have acquired from being written to a cd.

I don't know if it would cause problems or not but I can see possibilities. The uninstall might go just fine but the uninstall folder also contains copies of files that were upgraded during the update. I would think that if they get copied back they'd have the read only attribute. Then, what happens if there's ever a need to update that particular file again? Would it get updated or would the update fail because the file's marked read only?

 

These files are related to your Microsoft updates, so I wouldn't move them.
I found this when I did a Windows XP reinstall from my CD. They were not there after the install but reappeared after I went to the MS Update site and downloaded them..The KBnnnn bit is the giveaway, check them by noting some of the KB numbers and then going to Control Panel/Add/Remove(makesure the Show Updates box is ticked). You will see corresponding KB numbers in the list...

 

Hi Christer and Zander,

This is one of those issues that come up again and again. We had this discussion amonst ourselves more than two years ago, and a few times since then

I went thru the exercise of romoving a NtUninstal file - reloading it back and being able to make use of it.

I back them up to an external HD these days - not CD.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi ... If you do decide to remove them ? I would strongly suggest that you slipstream your copy of xp with sp2 , because you wouldn't be able to perform a system file checker on your pc with your xp disk , Once those files are gone you wouldn't have the option to perform system file checker until you do slipstream your xp with sp2 , by keeping them files and you don't decide to slipstream your xp disk , The only way to perform system file checker would be to uninstall sp2 and bring back your computer to the way it was at the begin but, that wouldn't be the smart way to go about it , It would just be best you slipstream your copy of xp with sp2