ISSUE: System Update badly needs option to delete downloaded updates!

[JNavas]

A client doing thorough system maintenance brought to my attention the fact that his directory

     C:\Program Files (x86)\Lenovo\System Update

was a whopping 2 GB! From my investigation it seems that System Update saves all

downloads indefinitely, long after they have been installed, even long after thy have been obsoleted!

With all due respect, this is a very bad idea:

1. Software should not be saving data in the Program Files directory tree!
   Downloaded data should be saved in an appropriate data location, as in the past with
   C:\DRIVERS, C:\SWTOOLS, etc, but preferably in the User Profile.
2. Saving downloads forever can waste a huge amount of space.
3. For those of us with SSD and hard disk, this takes up a great deal of valuable SSD instead of HDD,

I've solved the problem for me and my clients by uninstalling and then reinstalling System Update,

but that kind of work-around shound not be necessary! Please add an option to System Update that

will delete downloads (all, selectively, or by age). Thank you.

[someotherguy]

I will look into this.

[someotherguy]

There's no good answer for these issues that you raised.  I'm requesting the TVSU team to fix these issues:

1.  use some place other than "program files" subfolders to store downloaded install packages

2.  delete the downloaded install packages after each TVSU session, so as not to use unlimited disk space

[JNavas · Accepted solution]

---

someotherguy wrote:

There's no good answer for these issues that you raised.  I'm requesting the TVSU team to fix these issues:

1.  use some place other than "program files" subfolders to store downloaded install packages

2.  delete the downloaded install packages after each TVSU session, so as not to use unlimited disk space

---

Excellent! Thank you!

In the meantime, a work-around is to uninstall and reinstall System Update, thereby deleting downloaded packages.

You might want to add this work-around to the Knowledgebase.

[cwerdna]

FWIW, on my T61p that came w/Vista preloaded that I upgaded to Win 7, my C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update totals 5.61 gigs and occupies 5.63 gigs on my drive.  I didn't realize this (along w/some other directories that aren't Lenovo's fault) were such space hogs until I ran WinDirStat.  I would've had a lot more breathing room on the stock 100 gig drive if I'd known about that tool earlier.

It would be nice if there were a supported cleanup method, esp. one that lets us select which ones to get rid of.  I have updates dating back to 2007, when my machine still had Vista.

I have heard of "System Update Cleaner", but am wary of running random tools not written by Lenovo.

[JNavas]

---

cwerdna wrote:

FWIW, on my T61p that came w/Vista preloaded that I upgaded to Win 7, my C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update totals 5.61 gigs and occupies 5.63 gigs on my drive.  I didn't realize this (along w/some other directories that aren't Lenovo's fault) were such space hogs until I ran WinDirStat.  I would've had a lot more breathing room on the stock 100 gig drive if I'd known about that tool earlier.

It would be nice if there were a supported cleanup method, esp. one that lets us select which ones to get rid of.  I have updates dating back to 2007, when my machine still had Vista.

I have heard of "System Update Cleaner", but am wary of running random tools not written by Lenovo.

---

The safe work-around is in my message at the end of the thread before you posted:

"In the meantime, a work-around is to uninstall and reinstall System Update, thereby deleting downloaded packages."

[ychandrani]

I am reviving this old thread.  Has this issue been fixed in the current version of System Update?  maybe the developers can give us a one click solution to get rid of previous updates that are locallly stored in order to clear out disk space.  There is no sound reason for the dowloads to be stored in the program files directory.

[someotherguy]

This issue will be fixed in the upcoming System Update 5.0 release which should be ready in July/August timeframe.  I'm sorry it's taken so long to fix this issue that was reported back in January but the software team has been busy with other critical issues that were prioritized higher than this one.  Sorry for this inconvenience, and for now please use the work-around posted above (about uninstalling/reinstalling SU) to reclaim the disk space.

[ExJamJus]

Thanks so much someotherguy to update the community on the progress of the request. Really appreciate it =)

[christopherlang]

Wow. How many people are working on this, 1 or 2?