I have a Dell website server with over 150 customers. It is running 2003 Server SP2 with a 300GB RAID. It arrived from Dell with a 12Gb C: partition, and a 280GB D: partition.Over the years it has accumulated over 2.2 GB of "$hf_mig$/KBxxx" folders. This is causing my C: storage to reach critical diminishing point and I in deparate need of good ideas because shutting down 150 customers while you spin up a server with more capacity in not really an option. Yes, I have read all the Microsoft "expert" articles, but they are all conjecture and say "disk space is so cheap, just upgrade". Disk is cheap, but over a hundred grumpy time-critical customers are not. This is an expensive issue, and I am sure shared by many other website server companies.
I found a great article on $hf_mig$ files and folders at www.pagestart.com/hfmigpart1.html which better describes how some these folders and files can be safely be deleted as they are redundant. I think cCleaner should investigate this. I know it might free up another GB or so. I already have aged off all the $NtUninstallKXxxxx and KBxxxx/update/update.exe files per this website. I wish I could contact the website author-expert!
In addition I note the KBxxxx-IE8 updates are about 60MB each - it would seem that this size indicates a "reload whoile program" method if updating, rather than "hot fix" application. Any what have any KBxxxx-IE7 updates at all???
Any help appreciated, and please contact me privately at duncan at air base 1.com - concatenated of course.
I think cCleaner should investigate this. I know it might free up another GB or so. I already have aged off all the $NtUninstallKXxxxx and KBxxxx/update/update.exe files per this website. I wish I could contact the website author-expert!
CCleaner used to be able to nuke that folder until asked by Microsoft to stop that ability because people were having serious issues trying to install Windows Updates. While the developers read the comments I seriously doubt they'd enable cleaning in there again.
Every now and then someone asks for CCleaner to deal with the $hf_mig$ folder however it is not safe to clean regardless of what "experts" say that don't work for Microsoft.