Posted on Thursday, October 10 2013 @ 12:23 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Neowin
reports Microsoft issued a new Windows 7 update
that enables you to free up disk space by deleting unnecessary Windows Update files. The update is rated as "important" and will be automatically downloaded on most Windows 7 PCs via Windows Update. Once it's installed, you can clean these old files via the Disk Cleanup feature.
In a post on Microsoft's Server and Tools blog, the company talks about the update along with the Windows 7 problem that it is designed to help out with. Basically, Windows 7 has a WinSxS directory that can get filled up with Windows Update files. Microsoft designed Windows 7 so that when a new service pack is released, the user has an option to clean up all those old Windows Update files that are no longer needed in that directory.
The problem, of course, is that Microsoft has only released one service pack for Windows 7 since it launched in 2009 and has no plans to release any others. That means the WinSxS directory has been getting stuffed with Windows Update files for over two years, including many that were released earlier this week.
