Finding 270 GB used by c:\windows\installer; most packages tagged as 'PatchSourceList' - need ideas for safely reducing the size

Posted by Ruthlessrabbd@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 42 comments

A user literally ran out of storage and told me that they don't really have much on their computer. Using WinDirStat (tried and true!) I saw that this was true, and of their 477GB available 300 of it were just the Windows directory.

I have already run Disk Cleanup as an administrator, enabled Storage Sense, uninstalled Adobe Acrobat (got 2GB back) but I haven't seen any other devices in my environment with a folder so large. I'm hesitant to use PatchCleaner in the event it aggressively removes files and renders programs unusable.

Our MSP has an RMM utility that I don't live, which has a strange way of pushing patches too. But no other device in our environment has this issue despite all being on the same utility.

Any advice on how to proceed from here? I'm sure a clean install of Windows would work but I want to resolve the problem that exists in case I see it again. Thank you.

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systonia_@reddit

I had that recently with Adobe filling the installer folder with map files. Hundreds of files around 600mb. Uninstalled reader and then ran disk cleanup. All that crap got removed.

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colenski999@reddit

WinDirStat is one of those perfect pieces of software like Notepad++

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Cloudraa@reddit

i like wiztree more these days cuz its way faster but you do have to be aware of cloud files showing as their full size even when not stored locally

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Entegy@reddit

WinDirStat got a modern rewrite recently and is actively being worked on again. It got faster.

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marklein@reddit

Did it get as fast as wiztree?

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mrdeworde@reddit

Wiztree also can't be used in corporate environments without buying a license.

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Cloudraa@reddit

allegedly

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lngdgu@reddit

Umm, please don’t tell me that WinDirStat was also hacked?

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MonkeyMan18975@reddit

The WinSxS folder can also grow when it has issues with auto cleanup. You'll need to install sysinternals to run the first command, but research these commands and see if they help you recover some space

du -v C:\Windows\WinSxS
dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore
dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase (if you need to force cleanup of WinSxS)

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SpruceGoose_20@reddit

I’ve run the resetbase and not seen any improvement. Maybe because I didn’t reboot right away?

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SystemHateministrate@reddit

The ResetBase never worked for my computers. I would never run this on a production computer, but it worked for a couple computers driving TVs.

https://gist.github.com/MyITGuy/618fb5cf6c5938095eb97c63dfce1e8e

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GuruBuckaroo@reddit

This is the way. In a pinch you can just get away with the last line, but the full run is the best way. One item of note - if you do /ResetBase, your on-disk copies of the uninstalled optional Features will become unavailable, and you'll need install media to add them, so install any Optional Features you want before running that command.

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GuruBuckaroo@reddit

Also, this can help especially if you have issues with Windows Update - stop the Windows Update service, stop the BITS service, and rename the c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution folder. You'll need to be quick about it, as WU will start itself back up, unless you disable it first. Then restart the WU service, which will restart BITS service, and recreate the SoftwareDistribution folder. Delete the old one. That'll clean up any old out of date or broken patches waiting to be installed.

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BrentNewland@reddit

I'm not sure why everyone has latched on to Adobe being your problem. Seems clear you were just trying to free up any space you can.

If you sort the folder by size, you will notice there are many duplicate packages. I think this happens when installations fail in a certain way, and the installation keeps trying over and over.

You can get msizap.exe from msicuu2.exe and run "msizap g!" to remove orphaned Windows Installer packages. It's an older program, and may potentially cause other issues (related to uninstalling or upgrading software).

There's also a 3rd party freeware that says it can do the same thing called PatchCleaner (website is a .com.au).

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JoeyBE98@reddit

Adobe installs are known to not clean up stuff they put in the installer cache leading to tons of extra disk use after many round of updating the app

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BrentNewland@reddit

I've been working tech support for 20 years and I've never encountered a noticeable amount of orphaned Adobe files in the installer folder.

Considering you can browse to the folder and turn on the Authors column to see what company made each MSI file, it's kind of ridiculous for everyone to be assuming Adobe just because he said Adobe once in his post. I can understand if he had said there were tons of Adobe files, but since he didn't, you just have a bunch of (#*&@ repeating the same @#$* advice because they didn't bother seeing if someone else had said what they're saying a dozen times over already.

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Pale-Price-7156@reddit

it's literally a known issue: https://community.adobe.com/questions-9/we-have-a-few-computers-wtih-literally-hundreds-of-1gb-update-msi-files-downloading-constantly-1302886

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ADynes@reddit

Yeah, we've had the same issue with Adobe on multiple computers. The solution is to uninstall Adobe and then there's an older program called patch cleaner. Install that, go into its settings, tell it not to exclude Adobe, scan, delete all the junk it finds.. Reinstall Adobe.

This has come up quite often lately. Adobe kinda sucks.

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ConstanceJill@reddit

Not only Adobe, MS Office also keeps superseded updates in Windows\Installer.

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MrReed_06@reddit

Adobe's case is quite specific.

Instead of being a new MSI with a new GUID, each new Acrobat/Reader build reuses the same base MSI with a new MSP patch file, which means older MSP files are not cleaned when a new version is installed. This alone can use dozens of gigabytes over time.

The installer can also fail in bizarre ways, i've seen it duplicate some of the MSP files under different names but identical content, using literally over 100GB over time.

I don't understand why they do this instead of packaging updates in new MSI files with new GUIDs, allowing the MS Installer to supercede them and remove older versions

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LaxVolt@reddit

I have a user I’ve been cleaning up for the past several months. Never thought it’d be tied to adobe.

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bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit

DO NOT TOUCH C:\Windows\Installer!!!!!!!!!! It's essentially a repository of all the MSI files that have ever been installed on a machine, which are needed to uninstall any software. It cannot be safely touched by any humans.

Otherwise -- Yeah I've seen Adobe Reader taking up like 50, 60, even once as high as 110GB in the C:\Windows\Installer folder. It's a known issue where Adobe just doesn't delete the old update files when it automatically updates, and each one is like 300MB so it just balloons to massive sizes.

If it's a workstation, uninstall and reinstall Adobe Reader through control panel and it will instantly remove all of the old unneeded files. If it's a server, just uninstall Adobe Reader and don't reinstall it because no users should really be logging in (Unless it's RDS) and you're almost never going to need to read a PDF on a server.

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Ruthlessrabbd@reddit (OP)

In my case, viewing the details of most of the .msp files didn't show any publisher - all the fields were blank, save for the tag 'PatchSourceList'. There was one larger one that I saw was for a program we had installed but a majority sitting in the windows\installer folder have nothing

WinDirStat confirmed that 260 gigs were just from the installer folder unfortunately, and the Acrobat removal didn't clear out more than like 1 gig of the msp files 😓

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ihaveabs@reddit

Delete all the duplicate msp/msi Adobe files except for the latest ones. Boom done, you don’t need to install any third junk or even uninstall Adobe

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bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit

Do not do this. Do not touch the C:\Windows\Installer folder. One misstep and now you've got a piece of software on your machine that you cannot uninstall or modify. It's not a folder that should ever be touched by human hands. Just uninstall and reinstall Adobe Reader and it essentially accomplishes the cleanup task safely and without the potential to break stuff.

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ihaveabs@reddit

Simply uninstalling the offending software didn’t fix it for me. Meh, if you pay attention to what you’re deleting then it’s fine

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mas_tacos2@reddit

Backup the installer folder to an external device and delete all the files and wait for the scream test.

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stufforstuff@reddit

I'm confused? You're paying a MSP to manage your desktops (hence the RMM) and yet you're dinking around looking at a low disk space ticket? Why?

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Ruthlessrabbd@reddit (OP)

We're a co-managed environment, and while they are able to provide end user/desktop support I know if I escalate this to them they would have someone even less experienced than me trying to figure out how to solve it (seemingly no other clients have the issues we do)

They manage our backups, firewall, patch servers and endpoints, and are additional help desk support if I go on vacation or something. I do just about everything else

I really am not a fan of their rmm tool at all and want to customize the way alerts are generated and sent to me, but I can't do that without messing with the way their team receives them either. I think we're kind of a bad fit client TBH but I'm afraid every MSP experience will be similar; and it's not negotiable to fly solo because of my org's past experience with an admin

Tangent over but we're a smaller business so I deal with the nitty gritty and the larger things too lol!

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iamLisppy@reddit

Try this since you mentioned Adobe (fuck this software btw)

[1] uninstall acrobat.
[2] Go to C:\windows\installer type in \installer as its a hidden folder. In search put in .msp
[3] Select all, perm delete
[4] Wait until Windows Explorer crashes.
[5] Storage should return.

If it is this for you pretty much the why is because of bad updates but Adobe keeps the package regardless so they keep adding up.

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Ruthlessrabbd@reddit (OP)

I'll give it a whirl soon - and report back - thank you!

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music2myear@reddit

Don't. This is bad advice. Other advice in this thread will give you the benefits of a cleanup without the risks of a rebuild.

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Ruthlessrabbd@reddit (OP)

I have been reading and will check these out; I plan to try this on a spare computer (with a smaller Windows installer folder) first to make sure I handle it correct, and then will try it on the existing computer 😃

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music2myear@reddit

.msp files service far more than Adobe products, and these steps run too high a risk of breaking things seriously.

Follow the other advice in this thread, but not this advice.

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Newalloy@reddit

So what about other software that has .msp patches? Just turf it all? Don't follow this shit advice, please.

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Signal_Till_933@reddit

I concur this is some stupid shit that will crash your OS. Including “Wait til explorer crashes” as an expected step should be the dead giveaway.

I’d stick with this one

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/VQBFQ2dQQw

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Revolutionary_Till32@reddit

We have this problem constantly at our site. I created a powershell script that I can run remotely that goes and finds all instances of old Adobe msi and deletes them all.

95% of the time a user is complaining of lack of space its due to the \installer folder being filled with 80+gigs of Adobe's leftovers.

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PDQ_Brockstar@reddit

I think we can all agree that Acrobat is the worst. But man I love WinDirStat and WizTree