Cleaning Up after Installing SP2 - MVP Alex Nichol
Installing SP2 leaves a lot of space on hard disk taken up by files you would only ever need if you were to uninstall it. Once you are sure you are happy with it:
A very big restore point will have been made. Once a new regular size one has been made in the ordinary way, clean up by going to
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup
and in 'More Options' click the bottom button to remove all but the most recent restore point.
Delete the hidden folder of files that would be restored by an Uninstall: C:\Windows\$NTServicePackUninstall
Once done, if you try to use the 'Remove' for Service pack 2 in Add/remove programs, that will fail and offer to remove itself.
Note: To view the hidden folder - Go to: Windows Explorer/Tools/Folder Options/View/Show Hidden File and Uncheck Hide Protected
Operating System Files.
Note2: Alternatively (for the $NtServicePackUninstall$ folder): Notes by MVP Torgeir Bakken
If you make a backup of the folder to e.g. a CD, you can put it back if you need to uninstall SP2. After restoring the backup,
run %windir%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst\spuninst.exe to start the process.
Note3: If you see %windir%\$NTUninstall* folders which dates back to your SP1 installation, you can delete those. They are not removed by the
SP2 installation in case you want/need to go back to SP1 (and then be able to uninstall the hotfixes in case you need to).
The following folders should be safe to delete:
%windir%\$xpsp1hfm$\
%windir%\$NtUninstallQ<some#>$\
%windir%\$NtUninstallKB<some#>$\
