Safe to delete my Windows Program Data Files for Native instruments?

View attachment 40329

 

Everything in C:\ProgramData\ no matter which application is there for a good reason

If you delete something, you screw things up. So why do you want to delete it?

 

I know better than to delete "everything" in that folder as it stores presets and important data for some of my programs, but the folders I'm referring to are the ones labeled with ugly long letters & numbers and the reason is because they take up 5 gigs on my drive. It may not seem like a lot but I don't have a lot of extra space. I can back them up if needed but why would I need them again?

 

EDIT: Didn't realize this was a hidden folder.

I like to run CCleaner now and then; it deletes junk out of your temp folders and can locate/delete old log files and stuff if you're needing to free up space in a hurry.

 

DON'T DELETE THIS FOLDER !!! It has a reason, that the ProgramData folder is hidden

These C:\ProgramData\GUID folders contain, what XP had in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\{Revision GUID}\ and all these folders are compressed and small ... switch on a usable folder view and you will see.

The mentioned Scarbee folder above is only 15 MB !

But there are many more, e.g. for Reaktor, etc..

If you are running low on diskspace, buy a larger HDD ... period. It's easy to clone the system drive with tools like CloneZilla.

 

Of course I would never delete that actual folder. I've been in it many times and know it holds a lot of valuable needed stuff. I'm only referring to the leftover install folders. These are the folders I'm referring in my screenshot attached to as it looks like they're old PC set up files. not the folders to the right.

 

I already explained, that these are the ALL USERS folders and should NOT be deleted.

 

If you delete those folders, you might have a lot of problems when updating or installing or uninstalling NI products. You won't be able to uninstall properly, since those folders all contain updaters/uninstallers for each installed NI product.

 

Tread carefully ...

 

Are you sure? I have loads of them here - one for each NI product install? . You might need to show hidden files and System files to see them.

 

Yeah, DarkStar you're right- I didn't realize it was a hidden directory. I also found that not only does nearly every NI product create a hidden GUID folder there, they are the only vendor (at least on my computers) that has placed any of these hidden folders directly in ProgramData, although Microsoft does a similar thing with the Package Cache folder in ProgramData. I agree- don't mess with these things; they do appear to be linked to the installers and/or updates.

Regarding CCleaner though, I disable all of the "Applications" settings and only check the default "System" options, plus the Advanced > Windows Event Logs options. Do it all the time; never had a problem. I'd be more wary about the Application-specific features and the registry tweaking stuff.

 

OK. I'll leave them alone then. thanks for all of the input