What Happens If I Remove Msocache From My Pc?

[KohKarrang]

I use an eeePC and it's got tiny storage, even with an SD card as extra storage I'm still scratching around for space, I plan to buy a huge hard drive soon but for now I ust need a few hundred MB to allow for a download, I've read on several forums that it's unwise to delete the MSOCache files after installation of Office 2007 but purely because of future patches and repairs, I've also read that I'll have to insert the installation CD every time I need these patches or repairs - is this the only problem with removing these files? Or is there more serious consequences?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[niller74]

I use an eeePC and it's got tiny storage, even with an SD card as extra storage I'm still scratching around for space, I plan to buy a huge hard drive soon but for now I ust need a few hundred MB to allow for a download, I've read on several forums that it's unwise to delete the MSOCache files after installation of Office 2007 but purely because of future patches and repairs, I've also read that I'll have to insert the installation CD every time I need these patches or repairs - is this the only problem with removing these files? Or is there more serious consequences?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Try to rename it first and see what happens. I don't really have any experience with removing that file in particular, but a rename test make it fairly simple to revert.

[Rice_King]

Unlike Office 2003, in the case of Office 2007 you cannot remove the Local Install Source feature after the installation has been completed. The Windows Cleanup Wizard does not include an option to remove this feature. Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924616/en-us

Edited September 13, 2008 by Rice_King

[KohKarrang]

Unlike Office 2003, in the case of Office 2007 you cannot remove the Local Install Source feature after the installation has been completed. The Windows Cleanup Wizard does not include an option to remove this feature. Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924616/en-us

Yeah, found that article before - that's what I was referring to in my original post. What I really wanted to know is would the only real problem arise when I wanted to patch or repair or are there other more sinister reasons for not removing it?

[NHJ]

just delete it like i did.

[KohKarrang]

just delete it like i did.

anything odd happen, any fallout?

[KohKarrang]

just delete it like i did.

anything odd happen, any fallout?

I couldn't wait for an answer to my question so I just done it, and for future reference - nothing went wrong...yet

[NHJ]

sorry for slow response, the directory name says cache so you can safely delete this aswell as the $$$$$$$ directory in the windows directory BUT once you do this you won't be able to remove the installed updates.

on a side note, you'll save a lot of space.

[bendejo]

Well well, I was searching the net on the topic of MSOCache and it turns out there was some chatter in my own backyard.

I deleted my MSOCache dir a while back. Everything seemed ok. After a while Office complained about something or other, and I couldn't appease it with doing a repair from the installation package. I managed to get through it, and the only detriment I noticed was that the icons for the MSOffice programs disappeared. I reassigned icons manually.

Some months later, while trying to fully remove traces of another program, I ran a bunch of registry cleanup tools and by the time I was done my Office installation was hosed so I had to do some scrubbing to get rid of that before reinstalling. Now I have this 500Mb turd I would rather not have on my C: drive.

I have two tactics. First is to move MSOCache to another partition, then create a shortcut to it from C:\

We'll see if it accepts that -- Windows has this tendency to not respect its own links. I have that in place now.

If that fails, I'll zip it up and put it on another partition, then when Office complains about not being able to find it I unzip to the original dir.

I'm not going to push it, just wait and see what happens.

There was a joke in the 1990s that if one aspect of a virus was that it consumed as much of your system resources as it could then Windows could be considered a virus. This MSOCache is a great example of that. The cache even contains the files for Access, which I didn't install.

I try to keep it so that my backup image (in Acronis) fits on a DVD, hence I try to keep the C: drive slim.