Windows Drops Folders all over my System 2

[larrycross]

Windows / Windows Update just arbitrarily drop folders in the root of my USB external drives ... makes it hard to see my real folders ... can these folders be directed to a single folder? Can the folders be safely deleted? Some folders are read-only - safe to remove these too?

example folders
8bfbbf38a1a12bcea25b0e1c , 99b5f27021ddde292b53

Thanks, Larry

XP PRO - SP3

 

[lhuegele]

I've never seen this before. Are you sure you're not infected with some virus/worm/malware? Nothing like that is ever dropped on my external USB drives....

Good luck,

 

[linney]

It is probably safe to just remove them but have a read of these first.

Very long folder names in root
thread779-1363793

Folders name with random characters appear after installing a Service Pack or hotfix?

http://www.winxptutor.com/randomfolders.htm

 

[cmeagan656]

I agree with Linney. It should be safe to remove them. I've had 4 instances of such folders being dropped after MS updates in the last couple of years.

What I did was rename them with OLD at the end of the folder name and then delete them after my system had run stable for a couple of days.

Cheers.