TechTips - How Can I Move the "ServicePackFiles" Folder from My Windows Folder?

I recently ran into a problem with one of my Windows 2003 Servers, the C:\ drive was getting full and I constantly had to try to find ways to clear up space on it. Well one huge space saver for me was to move the "ServicePackFiles" folder from my Windows folder to the D:\ drive. This saved me almost 2 GIG of much needed space. Well this is nice but you can't just move the folder you also have to edit the registry so that Windows knows where you moved the folder. Follow the below steps and in no time you can have some extra space on your C:\ (Or whatever letter, your OS is installed on).

First thing to do is find the location you want to put the "ServicePackFiles" folder in. I choose D:\backup, so I just copy and pasted the entire folder there. Copy and pasting the folder is the safest way to go, if you try to cut and paste you could corrupt the contents, also if you have two copies you can make sure all the contents moved properly before deleting the files off the C:\ drive.

Once the folder is copied to its new home you will want to open the registry and make a couple of changes. To do this click the Start button, choose RUN and type in regedit and hit enter. The registry should open, make sure you are careful in the registry any mistakes here can cause serious problems. Only do things you feel are safe and you can live with the consequences.

You will want to navigate to the following registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath

You will want to make changes to 3 things inside this registry key.

I have listed the keys with the default values and then to what I changed mine to.

The default for ServicePackCachePath = c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\ServicePackCache

The change to ServicePackCachePath = d:\backup\ ServicePackFiles\ServicePackCache

The default for ServicePackSourcePath = c:\windows\ServicePackFiles

The change to ServicePackSourcePath = d:\backup\ServicePackFiles

The default for SourcePath = c:\

The change to SourcePath = d:\

Once these changes are made you can go back and remove the files located inside the "ServicePackFiles" folder. I prefer to delete the contents and leave the folder just in case you need to move the files back for any reason. It is personal preference and I think it's just safer, if you want to take the chance you can delete the entire folder but it won't take up any additional space if you leave it empty. Once the files are deleted out of the folder check your disk space. You probably cleared up about a GIG or more.