What does "C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\"

[Vaillant]

Hiya gang, I'm Vaillant *shakes hands*

Well, bottom line about me is that I'm studying networking at the moment, and following as many online forums such as this one to learn about computers. If any of you have ever visited GeeksToGo, you've surely seen me around.. So, down to buisness then.

The folder "C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\" is taking up 750 mb of my drive space, and I think it's needless... ghost2003's folder is only 30 mb .

I'm wondering what these files do, and wether it's safe to delete them or not.?

Thanks guys.

[Statica]

Hi Valiant .. welcome to the 'mech.

The SoftwareDistribution folder is one that is used by the Automatic Updates for your XP. In general, it is not recommended that you delete the entire folder. You lose your entire update history if you do. It's usually fine to delete the folder \WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder AFTER you make sure that you have no current downloads or installations going on in the background. A good practice is to manually go to the Windows Update site with IE, make sure that you have all the updates you need. Then delete the Download folder.

HTH

[Vaillant]

Ah, Statica, exactly the kind of information I was looking for.
Thank you very much