Windows 7 automatically downloads updates from time to time and keeps your Windows up to date. But these update files are stored on your computer even after they are installed. You can claim some hard disk space by deleting these update files. Here is how :
This tip just removes the hotfix update files downloaded by the Windows Update service. Once installed you can remove them as they are no longer needed. But the backup of these updates are stored using the volume shadow copy service in Windows 7 and are difficult to remove manually.
- Press the key combination Windows Logo Key + R to open the Run dialog. Type services.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter.
- In the Services window, scroll down and click on a service named Windows Update. Then click on the rectangular icon in the toolbar to stop the service as shown :
When the Windows Update service is stopped you would see its status change to Stopped.
- Press the key combination Windows Logo Key + R to open the Run dialog. Type %windir% in the Run dialog and press Enter. This would open the Windows folder. Scroll down to find a sub-folder named SoftwareDistribution. Delete this SoftwareDistribution sub-folder. This is where the leftovers of Windows Update are kept.
- Back in the Services window, select the Windows Update service and click on the green triangular icon in the toolbar to start the service.