kevinoid

I've been clearing out the session folder for years on my computers and haven't seen any problems. The updates are still uninstallable via Add/Remove Programs (TVSU really just downloads the exe/msi and runs it with a set of pre-programmed command-line switches). The one downside that I am aware of is that reinstalling an update requires re-downloading the update, since the installer is removed. Also, now that you mentioned it, I just found that the in-program installation history is also cleared. This doesn't cause updates to be re-installed (since each update has a detection signature which looks for registry keys and/or files installed by the update), but the list of installed updates in TVSU is now empty. I haven't found a way to avoid this yet... I'll add a warning if I can't find one soon. I haven't tested what would happen with deferred updates (since I have never used them before), but I will test that shortly. Edit: To amend the downsides: The in-program banner advertisements are re-downloaded (as they are when the ads change) and the updates list is re-downloaded (as it is when new updates are added by Lenovo). They don't strike me as significant, but I thought I should mention them for completeness. Edit2: Deferred updates are unaffected by cleaning (they are stored in tvsutemp which is already excluded).

Hi all, Below is a winapp2.ini entry that I wrote for the Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkVantage System Update program. This is a software/driver update program installed on many late IBM and Lenovo desktop and laptop systems. The winapp2.ini entry cleans out the session directory, which holds all downloaded installers and temporary files and can easily grow to multiple GB in size (see many complaints about this across the web). I have tested the entry on ThinkVantage System Update version 4.01 running on Windows 7 and partially tested on ThinkVantage System Update version 3.15 on Windows XP (in a VM, which prevented full testing). [ThinkVantage System Update*] LangSecRef=3024 DetectFile=%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\tvsu.exe Default=False FileKey1=%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\session|*.*|RECURSE ; Must exclude system dir or program will not launch ExcludeKey1=FILE|%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\session\system|*.* ; Need to exclude tvsutemp dir and updates.ser file to preserve hidden updates ExcludeKey2=FILE|%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\session\tvsutemp|*.* ExcludeKey3=FILE|%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\session\updates.ser ; To preserve in-program installation history, uncomment ExcludeKey4 (@ ~4KB/update) ;ExcludeKey4=FILE|%ProgramFiles%\Lenovo\System Update\session\|*.xml Warning=This option will clear the ThinkVantage System Update in-program installation history. However, this will not result prompting/installing updates again. I hope you find it useful. Edit: Further investigation showed that the in-program installation history is cleared unless the XML file for each update is retained. These updates have no well-defined naming scheme and are approximately 3KB in size (often with about 1KB of unrelated XML files each). Since I've not found any value to the installation history, I don't think it is worth the disk space, but since others may disagree I have added a warning and the option to exclude the necessary file.