Can You Delete Application Files From Download Once Installed? UPDATED

Can You Delete Application Files From Download Once Installed?

Can you safely delete set up-up files of programs or updates you lot have downloaded from the net? My C: drive'south Windows' Downloads folder has files as far dorsum as five years. Since these were prepare-upwardly or update files, I assume they were zipped, and that upon installation, the electronic carapace for lack of a meliorate word became discardable? Is this right, or is the downloaded file necessary to the proper operation of the file or update that has been downloaded (similar a Jack-in-the-Box that would stop being a Jack-in-the-Box if you removed the box)? Which types of downloaded set-upward files or updates are rubber to delete, and which must remain (if any must remain)?

The answer is yep… and no.

Assuming you've run the setup to install the programs they contained, then yes, yous can delete setup files safely. The programs volition continue to work without them.

Withal, the respond is also no: you don't want to delete them. For reasons that aren't ever obvious, you want to do something else instead.

Downloaded setup files are the new installation media. Once used, they can be deleted without impairment to the application. Similar installation media, though, you should continue them somewhere safety, in case you lot demand to run setup again and the download is no longer available from the original source.

Downloaded setup files are similar installation media

Setup files and packages downloaded from the net are but like the original installation media you received back in the day when you purchased software in physical form.

Nigh all software used to exist sold and distributed on CD or DVD media (or floppy disks, if you lot go back far enough). You would run the setup plan from the disc, and the software was copied onto your computer. After setup was complete, y'all removed the discs and began using the new software on your car.

While the distribution model is different — downloading a file rather than receiving a disc — the method hasn't inverse much at all. When you run the downloaded setup program, it copies the software onto your hard deejay. After setup is done, information technology'due south no longer required for the installed software to run.

If it were on a disc, you lot would squirt information technology.

Yep, you could simply delete set-upwards files. Just don't. Non yet, anyway.

Saving downloads

I recommend yous salvage that downloaded setup program somewhere before yous delete it from your difficult drive.

The result is simple: if yous ever demand to fix the plan again, you'll need the setup program to practise then.

When you lot have physical media, like an installation DVD, you can keep it somewhere and grab it when needed. If you routinely delete set-upwardly files before saving them somewhere else, when it comes time to set upwards that program once again, you might be out of luck.

The almost mutual scenario for needing that download over again is getting a new machine. You'll probably desire to install the software on your new reckoner.

The second nigh common scenario? Reinstalling an existing machine from scratch considering of a bad malware infection, or considering the hard drive died and y'all didn't have a backup paradigm. The instructions for a complete reinstall are pretty simple: reinstall Windows and so reinstall all your applications. If you don't accept the download, y'all might not exist able to consummate that second step.

Where to save them?

The question this raises is where to salvage the downloaded setup files.

It varies, of course, depending on how you organize your life. Given that you're probably trying to free up space on your primary hard drive, the respond would generally be "somewhere else". That could exist a different machine, an external hard bulldoze, your backup bulldoze, deject storage, or some other storage location dedicated to the task.

I'll describe what I do below.

Download information technology over again

The most mutual objection to saving downloads is that you can always download it again.

Always? I don't think so.

Also assuming you have an internet connexion, in that location are several scenarios where that's just non something y'all can count on.

• Software you buy in downloaded course can often just be downloaded for a limited time.
• You may take need for the specific version of the software that yous accept installed — something you may non fifty-fifty realize until that version is no longer available for the download you need.
• The vendor can exit of business. (This happens more ofttimes than you think.)

The safest thing to do is so easy: just save or archive those downloaded programs somewhere.

What I practice to delete setup files

I keep my Downloads folder clean. In fact, as I type this, it'due south completely empty.

When I download software to my machine I currentlyi:

• Run setup to install the software
• Copy the download to a folder in OneDrive, replacing any previous re-create
• Delete the download from the Downloads folder

That way, I always take a re-create of the near recent setup program for all the software I use, and it's hands available across all the machines on which I use OneDrive. (I tin also salve infinite in OneDrive past making the folder, or just the file, cloud-simply.)

In my case, since I have several computers, this practice allows me to avoid downloading the same matter multiple times.

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Posted by: thompsonscurinter.blogspot.com