Windows XP forum: Can I Safely Remove Old SP 1 and SP 2 Updates?

Jimmy,

Yesterday I had occasion to see a stark reminder of how right you are. Windows updated and I read the updates as they were installing and noted that one of them was for still for Sp2 and I'm running Sp3, so I can see that I would be in danger if I figured that Sp3 was replacing Sp2, which was my initial thought, because apparently it only supplements what was there from the updates on Sp2.

So, the lesson to be learned here is that no matter how much hard drive space you have, you need to plan for a LOT of it being occupied by future Windows updates, so you had better keep that in mind and buy a hard drive will plenty of excess space. I thought I had plenty but I didn't realize what a space hog Windows files are and would continue to be.

Thank you everyone for your help and valuable advice. I really appreciate it. I've moved all the files I can possibly move over to my Seagate drive and uninstalled everything I could safely do without. Now, I have to turn my attention to purchase of a new hard drive with ample space and then migrate everything over to it. I used to do this stuff myself professionally, but the technology has zoomed way past me now and I wouldn't even dare to go into CMOS to set up a new hard drive.. Heaven forbid!!

Thanks again,

Judi

With XP, space used by Windows isn't a big issue. But the further you come (Vista, 7, 8) the more space Winodws needs, not only during install, but certainly also during the years to come.

But, luckily, there's no need to do anything in the BIOS when replacing the drive by a bigger one. But be aware that older machines don't support the latest disks. I shouldn't try to put an 4 TB disk in an older XP machine!
But, most likely, 250 or 500 GB will be fine.

Kees

Thank you, Kees!

You must have been reading my mind. I'm thinking that I'll get some quotes for a 500 gig drive. I'm not teaching anymore or doing web sites and graphics professionally anymore, so I don't require more space than that at this time... and I don't plan to upgrade from XP since all my Adobe products are happy with it.. up to now.

I really appreciate your input.

Happy Valentines Day!

Judi

Well, Kees,

Your solution was the only solution that is going to work for me. Since I used to build, upgrade, troubleshoot computers back in the day, I'm "fearless" when it comes to doing what needs doing if I can find instructions. But I've never cracked a case on a laptop or notebook so I was uncomfortable.

The local shop where I've dealt before wanted $315 to do the job for me, including new drive, but I can't afford that and also I didn't like the idea of paying someone 3 to 4 hours of labor who was doing other stuff while the backup program was running automatically to transfer the contents of my old drive onto a new one.

So, I called Lenova and the guy there was very helpful. I ordered the 500 GB, 5400 rpm drive to upgrade my full 120 gig drive and something called an Apricorn adapter which will make a clone of my old hard drive onto my new one and then I can just swap them out and my computer won't know the difference, except that I'll have more room.

I'm so thrilled.. This has only cost me $127.00 and I will even have a secondary drive if I want to use my old one in the Apricorn from my USB port, which might be a good secondary back-up for what's on the Seagate.

And what's really great is that I don't even have to mess with the BIOS...CMOS won't even need to be accessed. I couldn't be happier that this situation is now resolved.

Thank you to everyone who was so kind and generous to help me. I hope that if someone else comes here for help with a similar issue, the information we have recorded here will help them, too.

Thanks again and Happy Valentines Day!!

Judi

I see them all listed in my Add/Remove section of my Control Panel. Someone told me I could remove the Uninstall files, which I did, and I gained an additional 1 gig of space but my hard drive is nearly full now and the only added files to my hard drive are all the Microsoft files.

Buying a bigger hard drive would make the most sense. Unfortunately, having lost my job, like millions of other Americans, I'm lucky to be able to buy food right now, so what I can fix on my own without spending money is my only problem-solving choice.

Thanks.

Judi

Thanks for the great advice. I will follow your directions and try to free up some more space.

Judi

Thanks for the reminder. I've moved all large graphics and documents and videos to my Seagate drive and was thinking that I really need to also copy to some DVDs just in case my Seagate fails. I'll do that tomorrow so I take no further risks. I do have most of them on DVDs but not all of them.

I have so little space left on C: that System Restore can't even do a back up. I'm going to take the excellent advice and delete some more of the recent backups and try to kill what I thought I had killed.

Thank you so much for the help.

Judi

Here I'll have my system running nice then turn off then turn system restore back on. If you have history with system restore it is just like Microsoft's usual efforts and needs a fresh start from time to time. If all is well, now's the time to give it a fresh start.

If space is that critical, take a look at CCLEANER. It's disk cleanup in it's stock form cleans off some space that folk rarely know about.
Bob

Thanks Bob.

Yes, I use CCleaner all the time and have used it continually as I've been uninstalling programs and deleting files..and then I've been defragging to see if I can get more space. I've only got about a little more than a gig. I know it's the darn Microsoft updates because I've had the same programs on my computer for years and have had plenty of space.. And now I've moved over all of my personal directories, documents, videos, music, and graphics and it's hardly made any real difference.. And I've also deleted all of the restore points, run CCleaner, and defragged again.. Still I think it's the Microsoft updates taking up all the space. I wish I could afford to get a larger hard drive and migrate all of this stuff over to it.. That's the best way to handle this.

Judi

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=largest+file+in+xp+windows+folder

Long ago we tried to run XP on a 512MB memory device and had to look for anything we could eject.

We finally made it fit with XP LITE but you can sort each folder by size and sometimes you find Waldo or some other whale.
Bob

Thanks Bob for the really good resources list in Google.

Judi

I have 5 external USB HDDs and 3 internal HDDs I have to watch my C: drive for free space. It fills up quickly. I download and install many apps (most free) so I try to move the downloads to one of my external drives with lots of free space and install from there so it doesn't get installed in the C:\Program Files (CPF) folder. Once in a while a program to be installed doesn't give me a chance to not load into CPF which is unfortunate.
I also removed C: from paging and do the paging on 1 internal Sata drive and 1 fast external drive. This save the C: drive from lots of file movements.
Keep a watch with my Ashampoo HDD Control 2 program. It watches many of my disks (3 internal and 1 external) for temperature and error reports. Because of temp rises I had to add additional fans (from old pcs) to keep C: and the external drive cool.

It sounds like good preventative medicine. Good for you. I'll no doubt have to get a larger hard drive but can't afford it right now. I even moved the I386 cab over to my Seagate external drive trying to save space. I'm going to look to see if I can set the Restore function to save over to the Seagate.. Probably not, but I"m gong to take a look at that.

Next, I need to put the backup files on DVD's.. I have most of my C: content already on DVD's but want to make sure that they are all there. You can't trust anything being safe without two backups on different media.

Thanks

Judi