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datatoo
Asked: 2012-03-17 11:58:26 +0800 CST

Setting a non-default downloads location for Windows updates

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Windows Server 2003 originally was setup with C: having a limited partition size. Is there a simple way to change where updates download to, so C: is not used at all?

Actually I would like to extend this to any version of windows, because I see it might help keep the boot drive size smaller if you wanted to have a ssd drive

windows windows-server-2003 configuration windows-update

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    As I understand it, the download location is hardcoded to %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Download. You can logically redirect this using an NTFS junction point (effectively a Windows symbolic link) to another physical location, though I would encourage you to thoroughly test this in a non-production environment. You could achieve this, depeniding on your OS, using a number of options:

    • The resource kit tool linkd.exe (Server 2000/2003)
    • The command "fsutil hardlink" (XP/2003 and later)
    • The command line tool mklink (Vista and later)
    • The SysInternals tool "Junction"
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