Anyone know how to delete windows updates in cue?

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Hi all, my business laptop crashed due to an accidental fall. It will need a new hard drive and a re-installation of windows. This happened right before leaving out of town on business, so I pulled out this old laptop (PII, 164 of RAM, 6 GB HD...yikes) as a substitute. Since I mainly need only internet access, this thing should work for my purposes. The problem I am experiencing is that windows update was accidentally put to 'download updates but ask me to install'. The machine downloaded a plethora of updates that I don't need...even for programs I don't have installed on the computer, such as MS Works (never seen this happen before). I really need to conserve space with this tiny HD, and I am wondering if anyone knows how to delete them out of the cue. Also, I can't restart because the machine wants to install the updates during shutdown. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

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Anyone?

 

[UMfanatic]

Well there is an option to shut down without install, but what you can do is run windows update via the web and click the hide option for all the updates you do not want to install, you will have to hide each update you dont want individually but it will do the trick

 

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Thank you for the reply. I realize that I could choose the updates to not install on the website, and they will no longer show up in the taskbar...but will this actually delete the already downloaded (but not installed) updates off my hard drive?

 

[techmanc]

Try the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility found here...............

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

 

[waitman]

%systemdrive%\windows\SoftwareDistribution

 

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Thank you for the replies. As far as the clean up utility, I will try that as a last resort...installing (and in some cases, running) anything on this computer is quite the challange. Waitman mentioned the 'softwaredistribution' folder...I noticed in my previous searching that there is a 'download' folder with over 600 MB of stuff in there. I thought this might have something to do with my situation, but there are 731 files and 182 folders, and none of the file names match the update file names (and there are about 15 updates I am trying to delete). For this reason, I did not delete the content. Can anyone confirm that this is the correct course of action? Not wanting to question anyone who is helping me, but this computer is my only way to do business for the next 3 week.

 

[Nafets]

You can safely delete every file and folder in the Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder to gain back lost HDD space...