Software Distribution Folder - Can this be deleted?

[zoeythecat]

Hi All,

Can the contents of the SoftwareDistribution folder located in c:\winnt be safely deleted? I'm trying to free up disk space on a couple of servers in our environment and noticed this folder (especially the download folder)is using over 1GIG of free space.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[58sniper]

I believe that folder is key to normal operation.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[zoeythecat]

I was able to purge the contents of the "download" folder which is a subfolder of the softwaredistribution folder. This freed up a lot of space and did not cause any issues.

Thx

 

[ntinlin]

If you have applied all the updates that Windows has downloaded you can safely delete the contents of the downloads folder as you have done already.
It should clean up after itself but often doesn't.

If you happen to delete something that hasn't been installed it'll just download it again.

Neill

 

[zoeythecat]

Neill,

Thanks for confirming that for me.