Does deleting old windows update files prevent uninstalling the later updates?

I found in task scheduler an entry that deletes old windows update
files every 5 days. Does this mean that you can only uninstall new
updates for five days? Google didn't reveal anything on this that I
could find.

-dan z-


--
Someone who thinks logically provides
a nice contrast to the real world.
(Anonymous)

slate_leeper wrote:

I found in task scheduler an entry that deletes old windows update
files every 5 days. Does this mean that you can only uninstall new
updates for five days? Google didn't reveal anything on this that I
could find.

The old update files are to allow you to UNINSTALL those updates.
Deletion prevents you going backward, not forward. Walking backwards is
not the most stable of movement, and the same for uninstalling updates.
In fact, deleting the SoftwareDistribution folder is what may be
required to delete the local update catalog that is corrupt to have the
WU client rebuild a new one.

You'll want to save backup images at scheduled intervals to allow for
restoring back to a prior state. Humans suck at creating backups at
regular intervals so they actually have some, so backups should be
scheduled to save to storage media that doesn't require human
interaction to make accessible.

However, if disk space is getting tight that you are considering
deleting old update files, it's probably time to start checking on
prices for larger storage, moving data files off the OS/app partition,
spreading the page file across multiple drives, disabling hibernate,
removing the windows.old folder if you updated to the current active
instance of Windows, default download folder (if you don't move your
downloads to some other drive), or other reductions in storage
consumption. On my Win7 host (from where I am replying here), the
cleanup wizard (for system files) for a Windows Update cleanup would get
rid of only 4GB of old files. Nowadays that isn't much, and if you are
so tight on disk space that you need that little extra bit then deleting
the old updates will not solve your problem of being short on disk space
as it won't be long until you run out of space again. I include the
Windows Update cleanup in the wizard but that's just on general
principle of cleaning up my disks, not because I'm tight on space.

The Disk Cleanup wizard can be scheduled by using its command line with
switches. Read:

https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/...k-cleanup.aspx

What isn't mentioned is that you first have to run the wizard (using the
GUI), make your selections (for user and system modes), and click OK
(which runs the cleanups). Then you can following by running:

cleanmgr /sageset:n

where n is some number. You can define different cleanups by running
the the wizard, making different selections, and running cleanmgr with a
different sageset number. I only have one cleanup config, so I use 0
(zero) for n. When you add "cleanmgr.exe /sagerun:n" to Task
Scheduler, be sure to configure the event to run with admin privileges.
I run the Disk Cleanup wizard every night (after CCleaner has already
ran using "ccleaner.exe /auto" as a scheduled event 15 minutes prior to
the Disk Cleanup scheduled event). I could put both commands in a batch
(.bat) file and schedule that, too, just to make sure they run in a
particular order. Those scheduled events run before the image backup
runs and all while I'm sleeping. Because of other scheduled events that
run while I'm sleeping, my computer is on 24x7. No point in having my
computer go into sleep or hibernate mode since the longest it is
inactive is maybe an hour at a time. Use the computer to automate the
tasks, especially at times when you won't be using the computer to
reduce wasting your own time on those tasks or impact the responsiveness
of the computer to run those tasks when you are using the computer.

-dan z-

Put that in a sigblock, or reconsider even adding it since it
contradicts your nym in your From header.

On Fri, 3 Aug 2018 16:22:42 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:


You'll want to save backup images at scheduled intervals to allow for
restoring back to a prior state. Humans suck at creating backups at
regular intervals so they actually have some, so backups should be
scheduled to save to storage media that doesn't require human
interaction to make accessible.


Disk space is not the problem. I am more concerned about WANTING to go
back given the "stellar" track record of Win-10 updates. You have
confirmed what I suspected - that this scheduled task prevents
uninstalling after five days. I have changed that to 30 days.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

-dan z-

--
Someone who thinks logically provides
a nice contrast to the real world.
(Anonymous)

slate_leeper wrote:

Disk space is not the problem. I am more concerned about WANTING to go
back given the "stellar" track record of Win-10 updates. You have
confirmed what I suspected - that this scheduled task prevents
uninstalling after five days. I have changed that to 30 days.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I've never found System Restore or update uninstalls to be reliable.
Sometimes you can go back, sometimes not. Some updates are permanent
and you cannot go back. That's why I don't bother saving the update
uninstalls and mentioned scheduling image backups as a better method to
restore prior state.

On 03/08/2018 17:18, slate_leeper wrote:
I found in task scheduler an entry that deletes old windows update
files every 5 days. Does this mean that you can only uninstall new
updates for five days? Google didn't reveal anything on this that I
could find.

-dan z-



Has your machine got "Disk Cleanup" App Desktop App from Microsoft? Have
you searched for it in Windows 10?

You really need to use these tools to do things that you want to do
rather than coming to these public newsgroups and crying about how to
execute these tasks.

There is no point in deleting anything manually especially when you know
nothing about Windows 10. Windows 10 is a sophisticated Operating
System and Microsoft has decided that it is not for everybody. So the
free versions ended long time ago. Only the Intelligent people should
be using it. The rest are required to start using Linux aka
Linux-Junk. "Jonathan Little Pig" can tell you about it.





--
With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

KenW wrote:
On Fri, 03 Aug 2018 12:18:08 -0400, slate_leeper
wrote:

I found in task scheduler an entry that deletes old windows update
files every 5 days. Does this mean that you can only uninstall new
updates for five days? Google didn't reveal anything on this that I
could find.

-dan z-

I read that every Win 10 update has all previous updates included.
True or not I have no idea.


KenW

If it has "Cumulative" in the update title, this is true.

Some things, like say the Adobe Flash update, wouldn't
fit the description. And it's tiny anyway, if you look
it up on catalog.update.microsoft.com .

When I install Windows 10 now, I collect:

Win10 DVD to install (or use .iso file if possible)

2018-07 Cumulative (hundreds of megabytes)
KB890830 MSRT
Latest Adobe Flash update
mpam-fe.exe Windows Defender definitions

(The drivers will come in later, or I can chase them
down via Device Manager if need be)

With that set, I can pretty well disconnect the network
cable, do a Win10 install, when it comes up, execute
the other four files, and it should be done.

Then, when you plug in the network cable, you'll be
(pretty close) to up-to-date.

For single point or out-of-band security updates,
those could still come in separately. And I wouldn't
necessary have a list of those to go by. You can list large
numbers of updates on the catalog server web page, and
go through them by hand, but that's a chore.

Since the Cumulative is the largest of the lot,
the others won't be quite as bad if you don't
collect them in advance.

If you try and do that to "avoid using a dialup modem",
you can be assured the OS will queue up hundreds of
megabytes of crap to download, just to **** you off :-)
This method is only approximately useful, due to
"**** happening"... It's pretty difficult to pre-gather
everything. The mpam-fe.exe will age out after a
few hours, and you'll need another. Can't even drive
to grandmas house, before the file you grabbed is
useless.

Paul