Re: Windows/installer (hidden folder - getting very large indeed!)
- From: "Rock" <Rock@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 15:56:36 -0700
"chrisk" wrote
I submitted the following query to Microsoft several days ago - as yet no
response even though it said I'd get a reply within 24 hours - I have an HP
Pavilion PC (nearly 3 years old) with a 32 Mb hard disk. A couple of weeks
ago I noticed that I was running out of space. It's now occupying 16Gb of
mainly .msi files (It took a while to track down where this 'disappeared'
space was located since it's a hidden directory. I've found only one other
posting on the same/similar problem i.e. 10/13/2005 from Bill43. The replies
indicate that there's not much I can do about this, and I just don't believe
that I'm forced into buying a bigger disk just to accommodate Microsoft
updates that have been automatically loaded into the system! 16Gb is far
bigger than the original XP operating system, isn't it?
It seems to me that maybe other users are having the same problem - perhaps
unbeknownst to them. Unless there's a way of reducing this space, it's a
sort of mechanism for built-in obsolescence of my XP-based machine!!
The machine crashed last week and it took more than three days to do a
system recover and total disk space after loading Microsoft security updates
and SP2 reducing usable disk space to just 200Mb at one point (even after
jettisoning strictly non-essential personal data and applications and MS disk
cleaner etc etc).
I've tried running the installer cleaner, but this shows four or five
installed software items which appear mainstream.
I'd be /very/ grateful for some concrete suggestions - the machine was
bought with preinstalled XP, and I don't have the disk - so I can't scrap the
current system by reinstallation (and besides, I can't face reinstalling all
the broadband connection stuff and Word!
I have an installation that is nearly 5 years old and the size of the \Windows\Installer folder is 548MB, so yours does seem large. How many files in that folder? What is the largest? Have you looked at what the installers are for? Are there any for programs you have deleted so they can be removed?
One other point. You state have a disk, implying a recovery CD, so how are you going to restore the system if there is a problem and it needs to be restored? Did you loose it or you just don't know how the recovery process works?
The computer manufacture is required to provide some means to restore the system. They have 3 ways:
1. Installation CD
2. Recovery CD
3. Hidden partition on the hard drive with an image of the drive as received from the factory. With this the recovery process is invoked by pressing a key or keystroke combination during boot up, and sometimes a disk is needed in conjunction with it.
So if you don't know what the recovery mechanism is or if you have lost the recovery CD you need to contact HP tech support and find out the process or replace it. Otherwise you will be back here at some point saying please help, I need to do a restore and I don't have the CD.
You do keep a full and complete backup of important data at all times, right? To address both issues you might want to consider getting a drive imaging program such as Acronis True Image , to regularly image the drive(s) to an external hard drive. That way the data is backed up and you have a means to restore the most recent working image of the system if something catastrophic happens, say a drive failure.
--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
.
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