Can I delete the folder C:\\ProgramData\\Package Cache\\?

Question

There is a new folder full of installers located at `C:\\ProgramData\\Package Cache\\`. I believe this is from Visual Studio 2012 RC. Can I delete these gigabytes of data without consequences? Are they all temporary files? It's a beta product so I'm not sure there is much information out there about this folder.

Answer 1

In short no.

But if this a space issue, which is why most people ask, there is a solution. Visual Studio wants to place alot of information on your C drive. In my case a Solid State OS boot drive which is quite smaller than my SATA drive.

It seems you took the first step in showing hidden folders or you wouldn't see the cache folder.

In your larger partition create a folder named C_DRIVE within a folder named ProgramData within a folder named Package Cache

Copy the Cache data to the new Cache

Use command line mklink /d "C:\ProgramData\PackageCache" "D:\C_DRIVE\ProgramData\PackageCache"

The program will look in the new location now.

Note: This process is the same for any folder that needs relocated.