XPUser - Quote "I'm not your grandkid" - sorry if I offended - the phrase 'teaching your granny to suck eggs' was implying that I fully expected you to know what hidden system files were & I wasn't trying to tell you how to go about displaying them - just clarifying for any other topic viewers. Regards "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

Oh he knows what hidden folders are alright. He just doesn't seem to be familiar with the one you're talking about. To be honest, I'm not either. Neither my PC here at work, nor my PC's at home have a, C:\Windows\Installer folder My guess is it's something to do with your proprietary system.

0

Thanks for reply. The desktop's not particularly a proprietary system - home built a few years ago but standard XP on it; the laptop's a bog-standard Compaq & the Dell is ....a Dell. All have the same folder - if I can upload to photobucket I'll do a few screenshots. There were a load of Googled instances of the folder & I'm now guessing it's to do with updates that haven't been cleaned up properly after installation - the desktop I can appreciate as I've never reinstalled it, but the laptop's only had light use since bought about a year ago. So as the folder doesn't exist on your systems that implies I can just delete with impunity?! - Hmmm... I'll wait for a few more responses before doing that - might try just renaming it for now & see what stops working? "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

I have a Shuttle, XP Pro and I have the same folder on it. Going to check it and probably delete. If it blows some thing up, I'll take it to the shop. Bill

0

Hi, thanks for reply - shouldn't blow anything up but you may find some apps don't work - would be interested to know what happens though. "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

OK, I ran the M$ tool on all entries - only removed about 300Mb of data & messed up a load of shortcuts, though programs appear unaffected. So moved the bulk, (19Gb) of files, older than a couple of months, to another folder & no apparent damage done yet. Fingers crossed. "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

XPUser - Quote "I'm not your grandkid" - sorry if I offended - the phrase 'teaching your granny to suck eggs' was implying that I fully expected you to know what hidden system files were & I wasn't trying to tell you how to go about displaying them - just clarifying for any other topic viewers. No I don't know a thing. Enlight me. i_XpUser

0

I think you mean 'enlighten me', though not too sure what you now want out of this thread. No idea why some systems have such a folder & others don't - one of life's & M$'s great mysteries. Anyway, not getting any further here so I'll stick with my own experimentation. Thanks anyway. "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

In order to see the "Installer" folder you have to do both of the following folder view options: Open the Windows folder. Select the menu: Tools >> Folder Options ... On the "View" tab: (1)Select "Show hidden files and folders" AND (2)De-select "Hide operating system files and folders." Just today I found that my Installer folder is about 600 MB, nowhere near the 20 Gig size johnr mentions. Still, I'd like to reduce it if I better understood the consequences!

0

I've since checked on 4 other XP systems & they all had the hidden "Installer" folder - all in the few hundred Mb range - wierd that some systems apparently don't have it at all, even when Microsoft produce a tool to clean it up, as above. Anyway, none as large as the initial PC. We've since gone about formatting & reinstalling as it had too many other unwanted quirks & I suspect that the size of the file was just from many months of partial/failed updates that the guy had just ignored. "I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."

0

I'm working with one of our users on a similar situation. His Installer folder has over 30GB of crap in it. You may need to force the system to show Super Hidden Folders to get to it. There's a reg key you can toggle at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\ShowSuperHidden. I think it'll just make a few apps not work right if you dump it. I'm going to try the MS utility and if that doesn't work just reimage the hog.

0

You can remove some of the .msi files in the Installer folder. The .msi files have meaningless names but when you hover the mousepointer over the .msi a tooltip will appear showing the name of the application. Decide whether you want to keep the installation or not. Remove it by right clicking the .msi and choose "Uninstall".

0

What I forgot to mention: When an installation was removed by just deleting a folder in "Program Files" the .msi wil stay in this folder and "Uninstall" here causes an error. In that case you can delete the .msi without doing harm to the system. If you don't know which application you are removing, it was probably preinstalled on the system, then leave it.

0