Windows Directory too large

[timwhit]

My Windows directory has gotten too large over the last couple of years. I am running Win2k SP4 and my WINNT dir is now approaching 2GB in size. There are many folders, which I know would be safe to delete; however I wanted to get some expert opinions before I proceeded. For instance the dir '$NtServicePackUninstall$' would only be accessed if I were to attempt to uninstall SP4. Which I won't need to do. So in theory it should be safe to delete this dir, right? Along with all the other patch dirs that are there, these directories account for about 300mb of space.

How about the directory 'ServicePackFiles'? This consumes another 250MB.

This doesn't sound like a lot of space, but my bootdisk is only 18GB, so anything that I can remove from it helps. If you guys know of anything else that is safe to remove from the WINNT directory so I can free up a little more space that would be great.

I probably just need to reinstall, but that takes days with the amount of programs that I have installed on my system. It's a big enough PITA to just to get all my settings in Windows correct.

 

[blakerwry]

clean c:\winNT\temp (or tmp)

heh... stuff in the media folder...

 

[zx]

For instance the dir '$NtServicePackUninstall$' would only be accessed if I were to attempt to uninstall SP4. Which I won't need to do. So in theory it should be safe to delete this dir, right? Along with all the other patch dirs that are there, these directories account for about 300mb of space.

Yes, those files let you uninstall service packs and patches. I delete them, because it's very difficult to un-install a service pack or a patch without having many problems.

How about the directory 'ServicePackFiles'? This consumes another 250MB.

This folder contains updated windows files with the service pack. You can transfer those files on another drive or another computer. You will need it when you install windows components or for windows file recovery. However, in those cases, it asks you for the service pack CD. In that case, you have to cancel and copy this folder in it's original location, then do the install, and delete it again.

I keep one copy of ServicePackFiles for each service pack on a "slow" disk for all my computers. Note that those files are not the same for windows 2000 pro and windows 2000 server, so you better keep a copy for each edition of windows.

In the winnt directory, check for a file with the extention *.dmp. You can delete that file. I think it contains a copy of you memory when the computer freezes.

Profiles may also be taking alot of disk space. Check you internet cache size in IE. Also, check c:\Documents and settings\All Users\Documents\DrWatson\user.dmp. You can also delete that file.

That's all i can think of right now.

 

[zx]

clean c:\winNT\temp (or tmp)

heh... stuff in the media folder...

Also, you can delete stuff from

c:\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\temp.

 

[timwhit]

Thanks for the advice ZX. I went ahead and deleted the uninstall directories for all the Win2k updates. Now the WINNT dir is about 1.5GB. Why must the Windows directory be so large? I remember back in Win95 days when it was less than 100MB on a clean install.

 

[blakerwry]

remember windows install from floppy?... ugh...

 

[Fushigi]

Really, what Windows needs is a 'make this update permanent' function to roll an update into the cabs or otherwise accept the update and eliminate the back-out files. Over time that's the only way to keep disk waste under control.