How can I free up drive space from the Windows installer folder without killing Windows?

Question

On my SSD machine, the C:\Windows\Installer folder is massive and takes up about 15% of my total disk space.

Is there a way to clean up that folder without killing Windows 8.1/10? Tucking away the installers on the OS partition seems wasteful.

Answer 1

This seems to have worked for me. This is a simplified set of instructions from http://www.kavoir.com/2012/07/how-to-free-up-c-drive-disk-space-in-windows-7-easy.html

• Make sure no installations are running on your machine (there's probably a formal way to do this, but I'm not sure how).
• Copy using Windows explorer C:\Windows\Installer to another disk, e.g., D:\C_DRIVE\Windows\Installer -- note: Windows\Installer is a system folder and thus invisible in Windows 8.1. You have to tweak your account to make it visible to use Explorer to make the copy. Google will help you find out how to do that.
• Make a backup copy of C:\Windows\Installer

• Type the following commands in a cmd.exe window running as Administrator:

  rmdir /s /q C:\Windows\Installer
  mklink /D C:\Windows\Installer D:\C_DRIVE\Windows\Installer
  

  • Windows may not let you to delete the installer directory, because some process are using some files within this directory:

    C:\Windows\Installer\{some files}.msi - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
    

    In this case you can use this link and use Process Explorer to find and stop the process which is restricting the rmdir command.

Verification

As a verification, I ran a "repair" of my Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 install (took 4 minutes to process). This completed successfully. Windows update (with reboots) also ran successfully after making the above changes. I will write back if anything doesn't work.

Answer 2

I created "PatchCleaner" to clean the windows installer directory of all orphaned files in one easy click. If you don't trust the app to do the right thing, use the move feature to put them somewhere safe in case you need them back in the future. I have run it on multiple machines and saved up to 15Gb of space :-)

Run PatchCleaner after windows updates to find newly orphaned files.

I recommend you use the Move action, and move the orphaned patches to external storage, just to be safe

PatchCleaner @ HomeDev

Known Issues (full details on website)

• Adobe Reader can fail to update after running PatchCleaner.

NOTE: as @ Feb-2016 version 1.4.1.0 is out that has a fix to allow customisable filters to exclude adobe reader from being incorrectly detected.

Answer 3

You can compress the folder. You will regain between 10 and 20% of the space.

1. Enable "Show system files" in Explorer options
2. Right-click the installer folder
3. Properties
4. Click on Advanced
5. On the new dialog, select 'Compress'
6. Click OK
7. Apply for all files and folder

Answer 4

Sometimes $patchcache$ consumes a great deal of "Installer" folder. You can check how big is your "C:\Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$" folder (mine was 6GB after 1.5 years).

Basically it boils down to "If you have original installers, then you could delete it".

rmdir /q /s "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$" (as admin of course)

read about it: Can I delete the folder "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$"?

MSDN: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heaths/archive/2007/01/17/the-patch-cache-and-freeing-space.aspx

Answer 5

There is no official way to kill it. You can use a link to move it to a HDD if you have one.

Answer 6

How to safely(*) clear disk space on Windows 10(**)

(*) The following steps are generally believed to be safe but I offer no cast-iron guarantees so please use at your own risk.

(**) The instructions were written for Windows 10 but similar instructions may also apply to other versions of Windows.

1. Run PatchCleaner to delete orphaned files.
2. Run Disk Cleanup (e.g. by typing "clean" in the Windows start screen and selecting "Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files"). Select the drive to be cleaned. Click on "Clean up system files" (and enter credentials if required). Select the drive to be cleaned. Select the option to clear system files.
3. Open Configuration Manager Properties (e.g. by typing "config" in the Windows start screen and selecting "Configuration Manager"). Select the Cache tab. Click on "Configure Settings" (and enter credentials if required). Click on "Delete Files..." Tick the "Delete persisted cache content" checkbox and click on "Yes".
4. Download and install Treesize Free. Run it, scan the relevant drive and then manually delete any of the larger folders or files that can be deleted (applying the necessary caution).
5. Open File Explorer and navigate to the Windows temp folder (e.g. C:\Windows\Temp). Select all files and folders and then choose to hard-delete them by pressing SHIFT+DEL (you may be required to enter admin credentials). Then choose to skip all files that cannot be deleted because they are in use.

Answer 7

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. :)

Answer 8

The best solution is to use Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2008.08.utilityspotlight.aspx