Windows 7 Patch Download Location

Active1 year, 7 months ago

Windows Update (and for all I know other MS Update services) appears to download to a temporary folder in the root of the drive with the most free space at the time of the download. Delete Windows update files to regain hard-drive space. Windows 7 updates have zero respect for your space, and love to leave update packages hanging around after you're done installing them. Describes an update for new component d3dcompiler_47.dll in Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, or Windows 7 SP1. Update for the d3dcompiler_47.dll component on Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Is there a way to change the download path of windows updates?

(I want to protect my SSDs from unnecessary writes.)

Edit:

I read a lot of articles about SSD in the last 6 months, and I came to the conclusion, that it is not necessary to protect the SSD this way from the writes. A modern SSD withstands at least 500TB write during it's lifetime, so these few GBs of data does not really matter. http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/3

inf3rno
inf3rnoinf3rno
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2 Answers

I haven't tested this, but what about a symlink?

net stop wuauservmklink /j c:windowssoftwaredistribution d:otherdesiredlocationnet start wuauserv

Windows 7 Default Download Location

meatspacemeatspace

The updates are automatically downloaded to the WINDOWSSoftware DistributionDownload subfolder.They are then unpacked to the drive which has the most free space available and installed from there.The contents of the Download subfolder are periodically flushed.

There's no way to redirect where the updates are downloaded to due to Security concerns.

After reading a post of meatspace I have found this one:

  • Start>Run
  • type cmd and press enter
  • type net stop wuauserv and press enter
  • type rename c:windowsSoftwareDistribution softwaredistribution.oldand press enter

Creating a symbolic link using Junction (Download)

Windows 7 Update Download Folder Location

In this example the software distribution folder will be redirected from C:WINDOWSSoftwareDistribution to the D:WINDOWSSoftwareDistribution

  • Creating the Junction

To create the target directory from the command prompt

To create the Junction

Windows 7 patch download
  • Restart the Windows Update Service

  • type net start wuauserv and press enter

Community
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protected by CommunityDec 30 '17 at 21:54

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