Where does windows update save downloads

So, the question is "where can I look to find out how to tell windows to stop leaving these folders on my disk? This is not an accurate observation. However, product installers executed locally may chose to extract their installation files into a folder of the root of the volume with the most free space.

Absolutely agree. However, in such instances, and presuming familiarity with the behavior of the likely FEW installers that would be executed on a Server Operating System, it is also possible to PRE-extract those files onto the volume of your choice.

Lawrence Garvin, M. First, I'm not a sounding board for official complaints to Microsoft. They have channels for doing that if that's what you want to do. I also, unlike a Microsoft employee, have the right to bail on the conversation when it becomes too pedantic. Or perhaps a more fair answer would be that it's not exclusive to Microsoft. Microsoft products have been known to exhibit this behavior, I'm not denying that fact.

So while I feel your pain Well I can confirm this behaviour categorically. When running Windows Update in the cases I have observed for WHS - we use them as little test targets for our development it will generate folders like the ones described on the drive with the greatest available space - There it decompresses the updates prior to installing them. We have verified this in multiple examples looking at the actual files.

It also only occurs during running an update something we only do manually on the test systems. So this is clearly caused by an MS "feature" of Windows Update.

It's a nightmare for us because it pollutes data which is supposed to be an exact image of our test data and the Update junk gets synced up to our SAN. Ok then ALL product teams are doing it. Curiously these all chose to put their temp files on the largest drive then to make the Windows Update Service Team look bad? Should we then complain in every single product area? That seems a lot of excessive cross-posting especially when they only time this happens is when doing a lot of updates through Windows Update at once.

Still feel Update is the culprit here. It went straight for the 10TB array on V:. Now, if your gripe is about where the working directory is built, then I'd say you're barking up a tree you'll never climb.

If your gripe is about installers that fail to clean-up after themselves, then I'm totally on the climb with you I'm just saying you need to be climbing the right tree. My gripe is actually both because both behaviours are just dumb There are numerous examples where updates need to be kicked off manually and similarly many situations where certain drives should be off limits. Then to rub salt in the wounds all these temp folders get left behind.

That's been like that for 15 years, and software engineers way above the pay grade of either you or I had very distinct reasons for designing that way, I'm quite sure. As for the failure of certain products to clean up after themselves, I think I've said all that can be said there too. There are ways to address this issue, although I'm hard pressed to understand why "certain drives" should be off limits to a process running in the context of a system administrator anyway who, by definition, has access to all of those drives.

Above my pay grade If you don't understand why we would manually kick off updates then you don't live in a real world which needs to quickly respond to business needs or realign with testing schedules. In fact if you don't understand why drives should be off limits you don't understand anything about enterprise configurations - it's fantastic to attach 10 new servers to the SAN, have them all patched to very specific but different patch levels for testing and find that by morning said array has been shotgunned with literally tens of thousands of files.

Anyway, clearly this is the Micosoft zealots thread and any further discussion is a distinct waste of time as you are not interested in investigating a solution but developing a PR standpoint.

Google led me to this den of patronizing MVPs. Like the original poster, I simply wanted an answer to the tech question, not a long thread of pompous rebuke and diatribe about forum catgories and the different flavors of Microsoft setup EXEs.

If the question is in the wrong category, just move the question thread to the correct category and notify the member silently. AutoPatcher is a tool that will check what all updates you need and will download them for you. It will install the updated and will save them on disk for re-use if needed. To know more about this tool, see this page. WUtool is again a windows update tool developed by MajorGeeks.

This tool will control the download and installation of windows update files and save Windows Updates files in a special folder. This is a lightweight tool which is very useful. Download link at the bottom of the post. Hope you find these tools useful. For more such information in your inbox for free, click here.

Either try for some legitimate source , else look for some alternative software from a legitimate source. Click on the download button in the above screen to get the updates when you are connected to the Internet. You can then install them later offline. To schedule the installation of updates at a later point in time, click on Schedule the restart and pick a time.

It has to be on the same day. I prefer USB drives because you can always start over if something goes wrong.

The tool is available only after you've completed the selection process of choosing the right Windows 10 version bit or bit for yourself. It will detect your language, Windows edition, and architecture automatically or you can select manually. I just go with the recommended options. Click Next. That is where I will select the USB drive, but you can choose to burn the. You should now see a Progress screen where the tool will begin the downloading process. Depending on the size of the update, it may take some time.

When done, click on finish. You now have the updates on a USB drive. You can upgrade whenever you want. Just connect the USB drive again and double-click on Setup. This is important — select 'Keep personal files and apps' here only to install the updates. Otherwise, you may lose data from your hard disk or SSD.

Click on Install on the next screen and wait for the updates to be installed. Sometimes, Microsoft will release the.

If so, you can download it from there and install them later without an active Internet connection. Use Google Fonts in Word. Customize the Taskbar in Windows What Is svchost. Best Home Theater Systems. Best Smartwatches. Best Gaming Laptops. Best Smart Displays. Best Home Security Systems. Best External Solid State Drives. Best Portable Chargers.

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