KB817778 etc... Any help?

[Tinytigerlily82]

My parents laptop has now got 77 notebook looking files with various names like this which through googling i have found out to be something to do with the windows security updates but what i wanted to know is can i delete them as my the laptop is getting sooooooo slow i am getting to desperate measures to free up some space! Does anyone know? I think they are only log files aren't they?! Do i need to keep them for any reason ?

Will be super greatful for advice

Thanks Amy-x-

[cluberti]

If you don't ever plan on uninstalling Windows Updates, you can delete the $NTUninstall_$ folders inside the Windows directory, as those are the hotfix uninstallers.

However, that'll likely have little effect on the speed of the machine if it's gotten that slow - the first thing you would want to do is to defragment the hard drive (a few times), clean out temporary files, and boot into safe mode and do complete virus and spyware checks with up-to-date antivirus and antispyware software.

[fizban2]

another issue to check would be in the installer folder, (c:\windows\installer) this is hidden by default you can un-hide it by the following steps

1. open a folder and click Tools on the menu options and choose Folder options

2. Click on the View tab and uncheck the hide protected operating system files box (hit ok to the prompt the comes up)

3. change the radio option to show hidden files and folders.

4. hit OK

after this done you will see an installed folder in C:\windows, check in here for multpile MSP files. sometimes they get caught up and aren't deleted after a patch is installed you can delete files then end in a .msp extension