Windows 7 saw it’s first service pack released earlier this week and if you are like most enthusiasts, you’ve already downloaded and installed the update without any apprehensions. Windows 7 SP1 is a traditional service pack from Microsoft in that the update is almost entirely composed of updates or security patches and extremely spartan of any new feature.

Generally speaking, this no frills update is rather safe to install and carries minimal risk of any complications. You may or may not be aware that every service pack contains the ability to be uninstalled should things turn horribly sour. In order to accomplish this rollback however, Windows must store the previous versions of all system files that the service pack had updated. With 1TB drives becoming the norm the size of these backups are trivial, but what if you have your OS installed on a SSD? You are potentially looking at losing 3-4GB of space – a good chunk on most SSD.

While you should not be quick to nuke these backups, once you are comfortable with the stability of your system post service pack installation these files are safe dispose of. A more pointed word of caution: you should give it more than a few days of use before determining stability!

Once convinced, open a Command Prompt window with Administrative rights.

Execute the command dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /spsuperseded at the command prompt.

Don’t be alarmed if the process takes a few minutes to complete – it’s a bit more involved than a simple purge of a folder full of files!