Solved Getting rid of old updates?

[shampasan]

Is it necessary to keep updates that were downloaded 2, 3, 4 years ago? For example, the definition updates for Windows Defender. Are there not some cumulative ones that would allow us to get rid of previous definitions?

One who hates clutter
Shampasan

 

[tom982]

Hello shampasan and welcome to the forums

I don't know whether these updates can be removed, but I do know that they wont be taking up much disk space, or much of your CPU so it isn't worth the risk really. I understand why you want to remove them, but you could be potentially making holes in your protection so, unless someone else here knows more about this than I do, I would just leave them

Tom

 

[niemiro]

Hello!

The answer is, no, you can't remove them. To save on downloading, some parts of cumulative updates - the parts you already have - aren't downloaded. This means that uninstalling updates prior to cumulative will leave the cumulative in an inconsistent state (half installed). Therefore you aren't allowed to by Microsoft (or at least there is a risky procedure of rolling back those which rely on the cumulative, the cumulative, old versions, the original updates, and then you are done)

Technically, if you wanted to tidy things up, you *could* roll back the updates one at a time in reverse order, right back past SP1, and past the final superseded update. You could then install the latest versions of any prerequisites, and then install SP1. You could then install all non-superseded prerequisites for SP2, SP2, cumulatives, rollups, and latest patches.

Can I please take this time to advise as strongly as I possibly can against this! Beside this being 24 hours of solid work, and about 2GB of downloads, I would put the chance of rolling back two service packs, every split cumulative, and previous versions of updates at less than 25%, and will leave your machine in a far more UNTIDY mess, with backups to roll back up, and then down, plus failures, and disasters.

If I were you, leave well alone!

Richard

 

[shampasan]

OK, OK
I get the picture. I will let things be.

Thank you for the advice
Shampasan