Unused service pack 3 files

[andy_nic]

I’m trying to cut down our student PC images which are around 15GB and i have found a folder in C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles are these files any use? Because to me they just look a copy of some system 32 files. I know if I remove them I probably won’t be able to uninstall SP3, but then I would just rebuild the image. Also any other files which people can name and are unused and would help cut down my images sizes would be welcomed.

[srochford]

Maybe :-)

 

One of the problems with Windows NT was that if ever you added a component which needed the original CD you then had to reinstall the whole of the current service pack to make sure everything was up to date. Windows 2000 removed this problem by dumping the whole service pack on the C: drive.

 

In a "corporate" environment you rarely add Windows components to the desktop machines - you update the image and push that out so it's rare that these files would be needed.

 

Windows knows that the files are in that location because the registry values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup tell it they're there. If you change this to point to a network share then I think that you can safely remove that folder. You probably want to have more than one folder (eg SPFiles_XPSP2, SPFiles_XPSP3 etc) on the server to cope with the different levels for each machine but it can reduce the image size.

 

The only thing that might cause a problem is if you're trying to repair network settings and it can't get the files because they're on the network.... To be honest, though, if you're at that stage then reimaging will be easier anyway.

[Michael]

Yes that's correct, it's safe to delete if you don't plan on uninstalling XP SP3. A better option would of been to create a slipstreamed CD from new.

 

Cutting down image sizes isn't always a good thing. The more you can provide in one go the better, otherwise you'll be installing applications afterwards... it doesn't make sense to do things this way.

[MyDejaVu]

Yes that's correct, it's safe to delete if you don't plan on uninstalling XP SP3. A better option would of been to create a slipstreamed CD from new.

 

Cutting down image sizes isn't always a good thing. The more you can provide in one go the better, otherwise you'll be installing applications afterwards... it doesn't make sense to do things this way.

 

but in this case, deleting the uninstall folder for SP will be ok, you are removing files that no other person apart from you , would use.

Other folders that you could delete, if any, are those hidden in the windows folder and start with $NTUninstallKB.....

[andy_nic]

So far I’ve found "C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles" then another copy in a hidden folder called $NTService PackUninstalled$ and other $NTUninstalls$, is it safe to delete $hf_mig$?, So far cut around 1GB off the image we have 7 images, so around 7 GB off the server

[Michael]

but in this case, deleting the uninstall folder for SP will be ok, you are removing files that no other person apart from you , would use.

Other folders that you could delete, if any, are those hidden in the windows folder and start with $NTUninstallKB.....

 

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear Deleting the folder would be recommended as it's not required, but the image itself will probably be at least 10-15GB (most of my images are) as I include as many applications as I can in a single image. I'd rather have a slightly larger image is what I was trying to say, as in the longterm it's less work

[gshaw]

Yeah we chuck everything on our images then the only stuff that gets installed afterwards is AV (easy from the management console), Sage (only needed in one or two rooms) and Adobe CS2 (licensing).

 

Disk space is cheap anyway so I prefer to leave everything on there. I also copy all the drivers to a folder called #INSTALL on the C: drive and install from there so should anything go funny there's no need to go hunting around for em afterwards

[srochford]

So far I’ve found "C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles" then another copy in a hidden folder called $NTService PackUninstalled$ and other $NTUninstalls$, is it safe to delete $hf_mig$?, So far cut around 1GB off the image we have 7 images, so around 7 GB off the server

 

Don't delete $hf_mig$ - it's pretty important. This MS KB article describes it (it's talking about SP2 but it's the same for all SPs)

[andy_nic]

I thought it looked a bit important so I left it there