Base install of Win7 Pro 64bit is 18gigs?!

[RampantAndroid]

They decided to skip if for some unknown reason. MS will not say exactly why.

I posted this before. In a thread you were in. I has to do with the fact that the Windows version is a string (a lot of places - readily documented no less if you take some time to look, do a string.StartsWith("Windows 9") when they're checking if the OS is Windows 95-98) You took that opportunity to rant about Java in this same post...so don't know why you're saying it's some "unknown reason." Other than your desire to smear Windows & MS whenever you can.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
The world would be a better place without Java. While were at it get rid of Flash too.

bbhaag- You are once again not contributing to the thread, if you have nothing constructive to add to the conversation stop crapping the thread.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36783279&postcount=81

they know exactly why.

it's lazy coding

if windows 9 else if...

it was for legacy software.

that's why they can't call it windows 9.

Exactly!

you can safely remove all files in this folder, they are just the temp files where Windows updates are downloaded, that should give you around 700 MB of space back

C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download

You'll leave Windows Update in a slightly confused state if some of those files are needed, but WU should recover on its own.

my swap is 1 gb. for 8gb's of ram.

i don't photo shop though.

if you do a healthy 4gb of swap should do it.

The main issue I *can* face by turning my swap file off (I have 16GB of RAM) is that if I blue screen, I won't get a minidmp file that can be debugged...but that's not a big issue for me, really. If you have enough RAM (which to me mans 8GB or more, depending on your usage) a swap file isn't terribly necessary anymore.

 

[Berryracer]

You'll leave Windows Update in a slightly confused state if some of those files are needed, but WU should recover on its own.

nope, been doing it for many years, and I even recently researched it extensively, there's 0 harm in doing it......offcourse you need to do it after the updates are installed and you reboot.....

these are the temp installation files/ cab files .....after they're installed, they are no longer needed.....where's the confusion? it's just like the software installation temp folder, after it's installed, the files are still there, but you won't confuse anyone by removing temp files used for installation :whiste:

 

[RampantAndroid]

nope, been doing it for many years, and I even recently researched it extensively, there's 0 harm in doing it......offcourse you need to do it after the updates are installed and you reboot.....

these are the temp installation files/ cab files .....after they're installed, they are no longer needed.....where's the confusion? it's just like the software installation temp folder, after it's installed, the files are still there, but you won't confuse anyone by removing temp files used for installation :whiste:

I've worked with WU enough to say this on good standing: the datastore tracks what files it has downloaded. If there's a download in there that is pending an install and WU goes to trigger a background install (in Windows 8+ that's driven by the maintenance window) it'll find the file is missing. It *can* get into a wonky state. Ultimately it should re-download the file. Worst case, you have to blow away the whole software distribution folder, preventing you from seeing your update history.

WU will, on its own, clear out unneeded files when they're stale (that is to say, if a file is 10 days old it is removed.)

Unless you're actively space constrained, or are noticing that WU isn't clearing out files correctly over time, there should be no need to go and delete files manually.

Edit: Moreover, there's no way to know which files you're deleting often - the directory names are the file hashes - they're not descriptive names. Sometimes, the files inside will list a KB#, but not always.