Why my windows 10 download files to softwaredistribution

You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. I have the same question Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. John DeV Independent Advisor. Thank you Rich. This is exactly the information I was looking for as I have an XP system, in service since November The SoftwareDistribution directory is 1. While I do have plenty of free space, I generally dislike bloat when it can be trimmed. Tuesday, November 8, PM.

Any guidence on where to go next once the server fills up again? Monday, November 14, PM. The WinSXS can be safely deleted. The large caveat to this is that you are deleting the backup files for Windows Updates and Service Packs. If you delete them, you will be unable to roll back updates. Tuesday, November 15, AM. If you have other tricks like that, I would like to know. You definitivly are earing our call lol.

Friday, November 18, PM. This happens because windows update lets you select updates that are part of other updates. These smaller updates later fail to install because they no longer apply. Sunday, November 20, PM.

Edited by t0lkien Monday, January 16, AM. Monday, January 16, AM. My install is exactly 2 days old A couple of questions here: Did you install a base image of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 released Spring , or did you install a base image of Windows 7 RTM released Fall Monday, January 16, PM.

Adam J. Friday, February 3, PM. But this conversation is not about network utilization, it's about DISK utilization. Saturday, February 11, AM. And gasoline is not cheap for the owner of a Maserati, either, but I have little sympathy for their economic woes, as well. Sunday, February 12, AM. Regards Simon. Wednesday, February 15, PM.

Thursday, February 16, AM. Garvin Mr. Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha L. Monday, February 20, AM. I was originally just going to ignore the guy you mentioned. But when I read your message I thought Bravo! I thought the same exact thing about the poster. Arrogant and condencending. However, I know he will proabably reply back saying the question is off topic. Which I agree completely with, he has changed the subject matter with his Arrogant answers.

Monday, February 20, PM. Wednesday, March 21, AM. Davis 6. Monday, March 26, PM. Hello I came here looking for an answer to "why my softwaredistribution folder has 1. Good luck. Monday, April 16, AM.

Good luck Oh how true same problem here Thursday, April 19, AM. ElderJedi, You rock. I'm not sure I ever read a better right-hook in a forum. The guy is down, the ref has finished counting. The links Thursday, May 3, AM. Dear Lawrence, I have no idea which world you live in but in the real world, this folder gets absurdly bloated on even clean machines.

Regards Bob. Friday, May 4, AM. Edited by phantomflash Tuesday, May 8, PM. Tuesday, May 8, PM. Edited by pcdropper Friday, May 11, AM. Friday, May 11, AM. Sunday, May 27, PM. Thanks to you, it really helped. Wednesday, June 6, PM.

Lawrence - Thanks. I'll give this a shot. Wednesday, June 13, PM. Thursday, July 5, AM. Thursday, July 5, PM. Saturday, July 7, PM. My main reason for wanting to nuke it is the malware scan is taking forever Strictly speaking, your malware shouldn't be scanning the folder anyway.

Everything in that folder is validated by digital certificate and SHA-1 hashing. Although, in the wake of Flame, one wonders.

In fact, you can delete anything dated prior to June 28th. The point made way early in this thread is that the WUAgent does clean up after itself on a well-functioning system. But there's a combination of actions that can break that functionality I'm searching my email archives for the email I received that describes the exact scenario.

Sunday, July 8, PM. Also, you should exclude the WinSXS folder from your malware scan. Or am I wrong? Wednesday, September 26, AM. If it's more than a few thousand, that's a problem. How many approved updates are on the WSUS server? If it's more than a few hundred, that's a problem. How many groups are configured on the WSUS server?

A large number of groups can exacerbate the problem with the previous two values. Thursday, September 27, PM. Lawrence - Your observations seem to make a lot of sense, though I don't pretend to fully understand especially the part about WSUS.

Wednesday, October 3, PM. Paging activity caused by a memory starved system. Thursday, October 4, AM. Thursday, October 4, PM. Friday, November 23, PM. Saturday, November 24, PM. Kindly Konrad Im just a regmanipulating nerd. Tuesday, November 27, AM.

Your attitude about how windows is right and the user is wrong is condescending. If windows does not respect user's hard drives, windows is broken. It holds people's computers hostage. My advice? Switch to Mac. Everyone else is. Tuesday, January 22, PM. Thursday, January 24, PM. Saturday, February 2, PM. I installed 3 servers with an image of server R2 SP1. I ran into this thread looking for ways to minimize unnesessary files on the C: drive. Thanx for all the information and rants, was a fun read ;- Keep up the good work Lawrence, found a lot of useful information in your posts.

Thursday, March 28, AM. Krystal 0. Friday, April 19, PM. Lawrence, I have a few servers running Windows Server and they are all experiencing greatly diminished disk space in the system partition. Tuesday, July 16, PM. Thursday, August 15, PM.

Friday, August 16, PM. Wednesday, October 9, AM. Just my 2 cents. Tuesday, November 12, PM. Thursday, November 14, PM. Interesting discussion, and some popcorn-worthy drama, but a dose of reality is needed. Sunday, November 17, AM. Good point! It's not a "properly working system".

If the Software Distribution folder is large because the Download folder is large , then the correct remediation is to delete the old files in the Download folder. Thursday, November 21, PM.

Thursday, January 2, AM. Thursday, January 2, PM. Tuesday, March 25, PM. Save the ReportingEvents. Stop the WUA service. Delete the SoftwareDistribution folder. I have read that there won't be any problem if I delete the content of Download Folders, also found that I won't be able any more to rollback updates, is that right? Thanks LauraJ. Saturday, April 5, PM. I have read that there won't be any problem if I delete the content of Download Folders Generally this is correct.

Rolling back an update is a function of the specific operating system involved. Monday, April 7, PM. I like hearing there is NO reason on a normally functionning system to fiddle with the software distributions download folder How about getting rid of around 20gigs of useless data since they already have been installed?? So quite frankly i find there are numerous reasons to flush the WU download cache, even on a perfectly good and working machine. And if WU agent maintains this directory, it's not doing a very good job since it never cleans it up for any reason and winds up taking over 10 to 20gb in most cases, specially after doing a clean install and putting in all the updates available I understand that deleting the WHOLE softwaredistribution folder is excessive, but the download directory itself is another story What you just said at the start of this post is about the same as saying if a car engine runs fine, don't change the oil in it, there's no reason to do so the engine takes care of maintaining the oil itself It's just not true and just won't handle itself even in a million years, just like the download folder So i don't want to be rude, but it's not because YOU don't see any use in it that there isn't any.

Sunday, July 6, PM. And if WU agent maintains this directory, it's not doing a very good job since it never cleans it up for any reason and winds up taking over 10 to 20gb in most cases This is not an accurate statement, but where humans have interefered with this process such as often happens with the "fixes-everything" solution of deleting the SoftwareDistribution folder , or improperly deleting ALL of the contents of the folder -- that will definitely confuse the state data maintained in the datastore that the WUA relies on.

I don't think that's quite what I said. Monday, July 7, AM. On my system, it is consuming more than 1 GB space of C drive. SoftwareDistribution folder should be left alone but there comes a time when you may need to clear the contents of this folder. In most of the cases, when Windows Update stops working properly on your device and you are getting an error message, you need to flush out this folder to solve the problem.

Moreover, if you find that this folder is accumulating a large chunk of data taking more space of the drive, you can manually clear out the folder to free up some space on your drive. However, if you face Windows Update issues such as Windows Update not working , Windows Updates fails , Windows Update stuck while downloading the latest updates , etc.

It is completely safe to delete this folder. However, you need to first make sure that you are experiencing a problem with your Windows Update.

Next time when Windows Update files are ready, Windows will automatically create this folder and download the update files from the scratch. Make sure to create a restore point just in case something goes wrong. Now you need to navigate to SoftwareDistribution folder in C drive to delete all its components:. It may take a couple of minutes for the process to complete.

After creating a restore point, you can now delete the SoftwareDistribution folder. To do that, you need to follow the instructions below:. Note: You can also use an elevated form of Command Prompt for this method. Right-click Command Prompt from the results, then select Run as Administrator.

When this happens, all you need to do is restart your computer. Some users are worried about removing the SoftwareDistribution folder. After all, it is an essential part of Windows Update. If you share the same sentiment, then we suggest that you can rename the folder. Here are the steps:. Were you able to rename the SoftwareDistribution folder, using the steps we shared? If it remains the same, we recommend that you boot into Safe mode, then change the name of the folder to SoftwareDistribution.

Do not worry about doing anything damaging to your computer.