Iâm running XP Home and all of its updates in Control Panel âAdd/remove
programsâ is listing a kazillion MSN XP updates, which I assume is accounting
for, who knows, how much space. Can I safely remove all these voluminous
programs and increase my overall storage capability or will it totally wipe me
out?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #15, I look at the space being taken up by update files and the
importance of keeping all programs up-to-date.
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Removing updates
Well, itâs not necessarily going to âwipe you out,â but itâs not something
youâre going to want to do either. The updates are there for a reason.
The updates are there to protect you from various flaws found in the older
versions that were being updated: most notably, security flaws. If you were to
remove many of those updates, what you would find is that your machine has now
become vulnerable to malware that is common out on the internet.
It is, in fact, that malware that may in turn wipe you out.
Free up disk space
There are other approaches to dealing the disk space issue. I typically
donât recommend removing updates unless you are really tight on space.
The thing I would start you with is a utility called Treesize which is
referenced in an article I have called âWhere is my disk space
going?,â or a related article to that.
Using that utility, you can see whatâs taking the most disk space on your
hard drive, then go for the low-hanging fruit. Find out whatâs taking up large
amounts of space and see if those things are optional or are things that can
be cleaned up.
Certainly, using a utility like CCleaner is another approach that can often
clean up a lot of unused, unnecessary, temporary, and other files.
Removing uninstall folders
I do have an article about âCan these NT
uninstalled folders be removed?â That is the correct approach to saving
or freeing the disk space thatâs associated with these updates.
The short answer there is yes, they can be removed.
I recommend that you back them up first should you ever decide you might
need to restore them.
By removing them, what youâre doing is removing the possibility of ever
uninstalling a particular update. But typically, thatâs exactly what you want.
Typically, you donât need to go back and uninstall updates. If you
specifically want to deal with the disk space thatâs being taken up by updates,
thatâs the approach to take.
Space for update files
In my experience, while the space for these update files can be somewhat
cumulative over time (in other words, it can take up more and more space over
time), it tends not to be as big as some of the other things that are taking up
space on your hard drive.
That is why I recommend addressing that problem itself: whatâs taking up the
space on your hard drive? Do that first rather than assume itâs the updates
that are causing the problem.