winsxs and windows software distribution/downloads

The contents of these folders are occupying 9gb. as far as i can see the
download folder has copies of updates.I have no idea what the winsxs folder
is for it did not exist in XP. Can any of these be deleted or moved? The
laptop has been pre-setup by acer to have a drive formatted with a C and D
drives and a hidden partion for re-installing software. It is only 1 month
old and at this rate Iwill be running out of space! I have updated on a
regular basis and have not installed SP 1 as I am unsure whether normal
updates do the same thing.

TIA for any help or advice
keith, in cloudy UK.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:42:57 +0100, "kwilliams" <kwilliams.net@NOSPAM>
wrote:

>The contents of these folders are occupying 9gb. as far as i can see the
>download folder has copies of updates.I have no idea what the winsxs folder
>is for it did not exist in XP.

About wnisxs (HINT: found by Googling):

http://tinyurl.com/57vw56

>Can any of these be deleted or moved?

It's not considered wise (and I don't even know if Windows will let
you do it) to play with anything in the \Windows folders. Deleting
them would certainly be something never to try.

>The
>laptop has been pre-setup by acer to have a drive formatted with a C and D
>drives and a hidden partion for re-installing software. It is only 1 month
>old and at this rate Iwill be running out of space!

Others have posted about that here and it seems the consensus is to
combine C and D, leaving the hidden partition alone. If you've made
recovery discs from the hidden partition, you can nuke that as well,
leaving yourself with one large hard drive.

>I have updated on a
>regular basis and have not installed SP 1 as I am unsure whether normal
>updates do the same thing.
>
>TIA for any help or advice
>keith, in cloudy UK.