I was reading here about removing the folder %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository on Vista to free up space, but I'd like some other opinions. Has anyone done this, and if so what happens? The article says, "The directory stores backup copy of the built-in drivers in Windows Vista." Are these actually backups, and if so what directory do they back up? Another article I read says these are the go-to drivers Windows uses when you plug in a flash drive or other USB device or hardware. I can free up over a GIG of space so it's tempting, but I'd like to know for sure what I'm getting into first.
better to leave it as is. you might have driver problems and/or inconsistencies with certain internal/external hardware such as printers, external disk drives, etc.
Be sure to read the comments in the link in the first post. With that disclaimer, Another Nice System Drive Cleanup Maneuver: DriverStoreExplorer.
A different tip that I used to free 600 MB last year - deleting older registry transaction files - is mentioned in 6 Ways to Free Up Hard Drive Space Used by Windows System Files. Edit: I see that allizomeniz participated in that thread.
Also C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore can be deleted (more strictly, can be re-built) if you never uninstall/reinstall Windows Update, but you firstly have to disable Windows Update service before it.
Yea I saw those comments after I posted this. Doesn't sound promising. DriverStoreExplorer looks good but it requires .NET 3.5 which I don't use. I think it'll be best to just leave it alone. I'm not that hard up for space and I believe it could cause too many problems. Thanks for all your suggestions.
Clean WinSxS with DISM, after last windows updates I regained about 3GB. Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
I found this article about how to clean Vista SP uninstallers, http://boshdirect.com/Blogs/Tech/how-to-reduce-size-of-winsxs.html If you do it, you can't uninstall any service packs, but I've been using SP2 for several years now so I don't see any reason I'd want to uninstall it now. Just to be safe I made a backup image first. I only recovered 300 MB but some people reported recovering several GIGs. But 300 megs is 300 megs so I'll take it. Considering that after every MS update I'm down 100 megs even after cleaning up, I'll take whatever I can get.
I have 1.4 GB of files in that folder. But the strange thing is i have files created from 2009, even though i bought a SSD at the start of the year and re installed windows from scratch, albeit windows 7. Maybe windows registers those files not when they got installed, but when they were created by MS. regards.
