20 GB in hidden Program Data folder, how much of this is necessary?

[bill_gilbert]

In cleaning up my solid state drive, which is smaller than I'd like it to be, I found a 22 GB hidden folder, Program Data, of which 20 GB is in the National instruments sub-folder. Of that, about 13 GB in in a folder labeled MDF, and 7 GB is in the folder labeled Update Service. No idea about the MDF, but the Update folder seems to be full of old versions of the Update Service.

If we don't need them it would be great if NI would have the installer delete the old versions.

Can I get rid of these?

Thanks

BG

[bill_gilbert]

May have just answered part of the question myself. I changed the name of the Installers folder and the Update service still runs, so I think I can ditch the old installer versions. I'm sure new ones are on the way anyhow.....

[David22JRA]

Hello bill_gilbert

You can delete it if you need. What I would like to check first is just take a look into Control Panel>>Program and Features>>National Instruments>> then verify if you can see those versions there. This is another option to uninstall software.

Regards 

[bill_gilbert]

I think I'll leave the MDF folder alone, since the list in there is miles long, and seems mostly to be related to LV Realtime. At some point, if I have way too much time on my hands, maybe I'll pick through and look for versions I don't have installed. Not likely though. Maybe I'll be forced to upgrade the computer sooner, and this will be moot.

[Hooovahh]

How often do you build installers?  This folder can be used as cache of installers for NI products.  Say you are building an EXE that uses DAQmx.  If you put this EXE on a new computer it won't have the LabVIEW run-time, or DAQmx run-time or other needed software components.  So you build an installer and tell it to include those installers.  When you do this a dialog may ask you if you want to cache the installers.  Basically this will mean it copies all the installers into that location, so that if you ever need to build an installer that uses them, it will already have them, instead of having you track down the DVDs, or download the installers.  It can get pretty excessive with all the different installers, and all the different versions.

[bill_gilbert]

Build installers infrequently, but have run into that DVD-hunting scenario. That thought had occurred to me, which is one reason I plan to leave it (MDF dir) the heck alone. In the past, the installers were usually cached out in the clear, in a directory named National Instruments Software, or something like that, which was NOT hidden. The Update Service seems to get upgraded frequently, and is not something I would worry about keeping old versions for.