Saving Windows Disk Space | Removing “Installer\$PatchCache$”

Running out of the diskspace on C:\ I found the C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$ to be massive! I used JamSoftware “treesize” to view what was taking up the space.

From research this folder can be safely deleted, however you MUST NOT delete the top level “Installer” folder “C:\WINDOWS\Installer” (only the sub-folders inside it)

A quick method for deleting this directory is:

Stop “Windows Installer Service”

net stop msiserver

Run the “Remove Directory” command (/q Quiet: /q | Removes all directories and files: /s)

rmdir /q /s %WINDIR%\Installer\$PatchCache$

Start “Windows Installer Service”

net start msiserver

Reference: http://goo.gl/SW5M9

One thought on “Saving Windows Disk Space | Removing “Installer\$PatchCache$”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.