What to do when my C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution folder is bloating?

One of the things that my wife does not understand about me is why I spend more time with my computers more than with other things like cats or dogs. She thinks it is not healthy. You know what, in vice versa, I don't understan why I should keep cats or dogs.

I spend more time with my computers is simply I like them and I like them to be in good shape. I check every detail of them, renew, change, break one and get new one. I can't just break a cat and buy a new one, can I?

When I was playing with this VirtualBox on my Mac, I was a little shocked that my Windows on it was almost filling out my 15 Gigs of the virtual HD. What on earth that is? Practically I only installed Office 2007, Visual Studio 5 and some video/audio players. Then I find out my windows folder took 6.8 Gigs! WOOOW..

I heard about this windows being bloatware and all but did not think of it as serious. It was not this crazy usually. Taking a looke deeper I found:

1. c:\windows\softwaredistribution\download folder was 1.63 Gigs. Thats' definetaly not normal.
2. c:\windows\system32 took about 1.25 Gigs, well I guessed I could take it.
3. c:\windows\installer was 2.44 Gigs
4. c:\windows\assembly was 440 Megs
5. c:\windows\Microsoft.Net took 200 Megs

Others looke normal, they took from 0 kb up to tens of Megs, I thought they were ok. What needed to take care is issue no. 1 and 3. Let's dig it.

I've got this article in hand:
http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-182069.html
http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/deletefiles.html

We can conclude that c:\windows\softwaredistribution\download is safe to empty. That's right, just empty the folder not delete the folder. What I did was to copy the files within the folder and copy them into my external HD, just in case. I ran the windows update to check that everything was ok, that every update was recognised.

I did not find any c:\windows\downloaded installation\ , instead the folder in number 2.

To remove c:\windows\installers\ is not that easy. You may end up failing uninstalling software you already installed if you just remove it.

Here are some articles:
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/01/31/how-to-safely-delete-orphaned-patches.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

I've got a feeling this is gonna be a little rocky. so I am gonna investigate a little more before doing it. After finding out that there's no orphan files by running msizap.exe with no results, I decided to cut the files in c:\windows\installer and then paste them somewhere in my external HD. I will return them later when I want to uninstall something. However, I don't have the guts to move all files in the directory. There's one directory I did not touch, that is C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$\ under this directory I had Managed folder which also I did not touch. The names of the folders are too spooky to be touched. There's a blog that wrote scary things about this folder: http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/01/17/the-patch-cache-and-freeing-space.aspx

Therefore, I could only move 1.3 Gigs out of my windows, or totally 3 Gigs or thereabouts.
So far, so good. I will tell you later if this really causes issues. See you.