Randomly named hotfix folders

[tscnmuk]

When installing a windows service pack or hotfix, the extraction process extracts all of the files to a folder, usually on the C:\ drive.

 

All of these folders are named such as, taking one from my own laptop "d77d0c684bbaf36eaacdfa08f8cd0c47". Is there any convention to these names as googling them never comes up with any results, or is it just a random name so that the files wont over right anything else?

 

Not really affecting anything, but just curious really!!

 

Tom

[SYNACK]

Could be the GUID of the patch or something but that is just speculation.

[tscnmuk]

That wouldn't suprise me - it's something i've wondered about for a while and never thought to find out :-)

[SYNACK]

Heres Microsoft's answer, at least for major updates

 

File Extraction

 

When you run the executable file for the package, its contents are extracted into a temporary extraction directory. The location of that directory can be randomly generated by the package installer, or you can specify it as part of a command-line option. If you do not specify a path, the package installer determines which drive on the local fixed disks has the most disk space. It then uses a Windows application programming interface (API) to generate a random name for the extraction directory and places the directory at the root of the drive. For more information, see Extracting Update Package Contents Prior to Deployment.