I registered with Piriform just so that I could reply to this.
In what I am replying to below, it says something like: without a previous file in the $hf_mig$ folder, you might end up with the wrong version on your system (according to Greenknight).
This is WORSE:
In the past, I cleaned out my KB files based on the 6 digit KB number and how much time had passed since installation. Of course, this resulted in removing files from the $hf_mig$ folder. A couple of months ago, my computer notified me that an automatic update was ready to go. I told it to go ahead. Part 3 of 3 failed (I can't find the specific KB number. I know I wrote it down somewhere). I then spent 3 hours of daytime minutes on the phone with Microsoft because every 10 minutes or so I was getting notified that an update (the same one) was ready to be installed.
The problem was that this update was NOT a new number. If it had been, there probably wouldn't be a problem. Since it was a correction of a previously established number, it got stuck when it couldn't find the old file. Microsoft had to go into my computer and tweek several things so that I would stop getting notified of an update. They also told me that I needed to try to reinstall Excel (the target of the failing part of the update) and that if I couldn't, I might have to reinstall the entire system! Since I don't use Excel much, I left it alone and it seems to be working.
I choose not to reinstall Excel, because I already have this problem with WMP11. I deleted the uninstall files for WMP4 (that's what the file said). I later had to reinstall WMP11 and the install failed (all 3 trys). WMP11 seems to be working, but the installs did not complete. I figured it would probably take more time (and money) to try to get this fixed than it would to reinstall the system. Since it SEEMS to be working, I chose to do nothing more.
For me at least, I'm not touching the $hf_mig$ folder again.
Shortly after the above, I installed CCleaner (complete coincidence). When I set it up, I didn't see an option for deleting uninstall files. Nothing unexpected has been deleted, so I guess I didn't select it. Where is this option listed?
