My Windows XP OS Addons and Update Pack (2023)

[Zorba the Geek]

Can anyone suggest a solution to the problem of orphan folders left behind when using the addons to remove Windows Components.  I have empty folders in my system including Outlook Express, netmeeting, msagent, and usmt.  These folders are locked by either Winlogon.exe or Explorer, or both, and if you use a utility like Unlocker to remove the handle to them and delete them they are recreated during boot time.  Ideally one would be able to hack a Windows DLL that maps the paths to these protected folders, but I am not expert enough to do this.  The only other solution I can think of is to execute an unlocking utility using the registry Run key so that the folders are deleted at each boot time.  I know of three of these utilities that support commandline usage.  Iobit Unlocker deletes files and folders fully, but shows a dialogue box saying "The operation completed successfully", because it does not have a silent switch.  Unlocker moves deleted files to the Recycle Bin which rapidly fills up with empty folders.  Lockhunter will delete files and folders fully, but it will not execute from the HKLM or HKCU Run key for some reason.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

2 hours ago, Zorba the Geek said:

These folders are locked by either Winlogon.exe or Explorer, or both, and if you use a utility like Unlocker to remove the handle to them and delete them they are recreated during boot time.

Easiest would be that if you unlocked/deleted a FOLDER by the name of FOLDER, then *before* you reboot you would create a FILE *without any dot-extension* by the name of FOLDER.

ie, replace the FOLDER with a FILE of the same exact name.

[Zorba the Geek]

On 9/2/2025 at 12:17 PM, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Easiest would be that if you unlocked/deleted a FOLDER by the name of FOLDER, then *before* you reboot you would create a FILE *without any dot-extension* by the name of FOLDER.

ie, replace the FOLDER with a FILE of the same exact name.

Thanks for this clever tip that I have never read anywhere else.  I tried it and it works!

Here is my solution using the integrator.  I have discovered that setup reads the paths in the DestinationDirs section of the installation INFs of Windows components and registers these folders somewhere as protected.  It is not possible to remove these INFs from the source because they are signed by nt5inf.cat, and their absence would cause setup to be aborted half way through.  My solution is to over-write these INFs with a dummy INF that contains a few lines in the Version section like this example

[Version]
Signature= "$Windows NT$"
LayoutFile=layout.inf
[DefaultInstall]

and delete the INF late in the setup.  I have tried this with Speech Support, Movie Maker, and internet Connection Wizard and it seems to work.  Here is the latest addon that incorporates this technique.

File: SpeechSupport_DeleteAddon.7z (Dropbox)
File: SpeechSupport_DeleteAddon.7z (Google Drive)
File: SpeechSupport_DeleteAddon.7z (4Shared)
MD5:  86FF6CEE0B6E50FF0DE292B9CC9E6908
SHA1: 995DC283DCC585AB1F175933544AB621CCED46C4
Size: 339 KB
Build date: 13/09/2025

Edited 2 hours ago by Zorba the Geek