Cleanup after fresh windows server 2003 installation

Question

After installing Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 and then running every single windows update, the disk space used is huge. This is mainly due to all the hotfix / updates and their rollback data, etc.

I agree that in a production environment I want the ability to rollback any hotfixes that I may add in case something breaks that was not thought of. However, for a fresh installation of windows on a new box I'd rather it was just a clean installation with all the latest updates.

Is there a way of installing all the service packs and updates and then cleaning up the machine afterwards to it uses less disk space?

Answer 1

If you go to your windows directory, you will see a lot of $ntuninstallKB$ directories. For example - c:\windows\$NtUninstallKB961371$\

In addition to individual KB updates above, service packs are located in the $hf_mig$ directory.... Take a look for other dollar directories as well as these are usually always updates.

Personally, I wouldn't remove them - however, having said that, I have never rolled back a update so maybe I should remove mine! :S