SOLVED "f" and "r" Folders in My C:\Windows Directory

[Skeezix]

I have over 33,000 folders named "f" and over 33,283 folders named "r" in C: \Windows.

24,537 of the "f" folders are in Windows\servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix~[and then a bunch of letters and numbers that relate to windows updates]
3,208 of the "f" folders are in Windows/WinSxS\msil_microsoft[and then another bunch of letters and numbers]
3,948 of the "f" folders are in Windows\WinSxS\TempInFlight[more letters and numbers]
1,460 of the "f" folders are in Windows\WinSxS\x86[more letters and numbers]

...and you get the idea.

Many of the folders are empty while others have one or two DLL files in them. I think that most of the "f" files are related to the Windows 10 updates but I'm not sure. And I cannot delete the \Temp\Inflight\... folders. I've tried a few apps that I got online to delete them but the apps just leave them in place.

So, what are these files and can I safely delete them? I'd be interesting in knowing if others have over 66,000 of these folders like I have...

 

[richard6]

I have them too. I have three "Package_for_RollupFix..." subfolders. The Date Modified for these are in October, November and December so I suspect they are the dates that I ran Windows Updates. Perhaps they contain data that would be used to roll back to a previous update if necessary, but that's just a guess. I'm going to leave them alone - my entire C: drive only contains 166 GB (I don't store my data on C

 

[Skeezix]

Guess I'll just hafta leave it alone too.

There's something wrong with having almost 70,000 files each containing a couple lines of code...

 

[shell]

The best thing is, you keep your fingers from the WinSxS Folder
Any modifcation there can destroy the windows installation

 

[Skeezix]

Thanks for the warning. I shall indeed heed it.

 

[shell]

There are Commands from Microsoft itself to celan up this Folder
Open Command window as administartor

dism /online /cleanup-image /analyzecomponentstore
this searches for obsolete files and at the end it tells you how many are found

dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup
this will delete all previousy found files, it runs a long time to finish

 

[Skeezix]

I've run those before, but I just did it again. And I still have the 70,000+ "f" and "r" files.

Here are the results of the DISMs:

​

 

[shell]

In this case they are not obsolete