FG

Can I delete the folder "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$"?

Fresh3 days ago
Mar 15, 2026308963 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

This folder is taking up nearly a GB of my C partition. Is it possible to just delete it?

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Fix for: Can I delete the folder "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$"?

Low Risk

Heath Stewart's The Patch Cache and Freeing Space on MSDN blogs explains in detail. An excerpt: [..] cause the Windows Installer service to cache any of the original files being replaced into the baseline cache. [..] It is this baseline cache that consumes a lot of drive space on the system drive after installing [..] The baseline cache facilitates patch uninstall by storing the original files so that they can be copied back to the target locations. [..] by removing the baseline cache for a pro…

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