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How to Safely Delete 30GB of .MSP Files in Windows 10
A scan with WinDirStat revealed that approximately 30GB of .MSP files have accumulated on the system drive. These files are known to be related to software updates but occupy an unusually large amount of space. Attempting to use the Patchcleaner tool identified only 250MB of "orphaned files," while the remaining 29GB could not be cleaned due to filter limitations. Most of the file names appear in an unrecognizable encoding (as shown in the screenshot), making it impossible to determine their associated programs. It is necessary to safely remove these files to free up disk space while ensuring that existing software functionality remains unaffected.
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It is not recommended to manually clean up .msp files in the Windows Installer cache located in the %windir%\installer folder. This directory is automatically managed by Windows, and manual intervention can lead to various issues, including problems with installing or updating applications.
MSP files are Windows Installer Patch files used for updating and patching existing software.
Many of these files are stored in the Windows Update or SoftwareDistribution folders.
They are generally safe to delete only if the updates have been successfully installed and are not pending.
The Windows Installer Unused Files Cleanup Tool (WICleanup) by KZTechs can scan for orphaned MSI and MSP files in the Windows Installer folder and allows you to delete them via the graphical user interface (GUI). For scripts and command-line usage, WICleanup also includes a command-line version in the archive (WICleanupC.exe).
Safely use Windows built-in Disk Cleanup tool and select Clean up system files to delete these .MSP files.
