When using smaller SSDs, such as 60 or 80 GBs or even 120 GBs, you may soon run into the problem that certain default windows folders are getting very big and overgrown. Two of these directories are easy to move to any other harddisk that may be in your system. If you head over to www.sysinternals.com and download junction.exe you will very quickly free up alot of space.
The two directories I move by default are:
- C:\Windows\Installer
- C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
These folders contain large amounts of static files that are only needed to allow you to uninstall the features that they came with. This will not slow down window’s operations at all.
Step 1 is to goto your bigger disk, for instance your D: drive and create a folder called “Junctions”. In this folder create two more folders called “Download” & “Installer”. Now rename the original folders to something else, say Installer_ and Download_ (make sure you are not downloading updates or installing them)
Once you downloaded junction.exe place it in say C:\Windows\System32 to be on call from anywhere in the command prompt. Open a command prompt with elevated privileges (type in CMD in the searchbox of your taskbar, right-click and select “Run as Administrator).
junction C:\Windows\Installer D:\Junctions\Installer
junction C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download D:\Junctions\Download
Note: The first time your run any SysInternals program a pop-up will appear with a License Agreement. Make sure you understand what you are agreeing too.
Now move the files from the old directories into the new ones and delete the old directories and that’s it! On a machine that has been running for some time this may safe you anywhere upto 10 GBs of storage space.