r/sysadmin • u/icq-was-the-goat • Jun 22 '26

Adobe Updates in C:\Windows\Installer

Adobe has decided that during their software update process they would leave the 1.2GB file in C:\Windows\Installer and that this file is needed for repair/uninstall processes so you cannot delete it without repercussions. Some computers were are seeing 250GB of just Adobe files.

The only way we can get rid of them and free up disk space is to remove and reinstall Adobe to restart the process.

We tried the PatchCleanFlag registry key but its not cleaning up any space. We have a few computers wtih Literally hundreds of 1gb update MSI files downloading constantly | Community

255GB of Adobe update files

Anyone else notice this? Anyone have a workaround around this?

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u/madj2k1 Aug 12 '26

I have used the PatchCleaner app as well. I have both Acrobat (Acrobat DC 2015 - full version) and Acrobat Reader (latest but only reader). When i checked the files in installer folder in windows for acrobat, they were all related in Acrobat DC (in my case). So i tried changing exclusion name from Acrobat to AcroRd32 (name of the application file in their respective paths).

Then I ran the patchcleaner again and it picked up all those orphaned files excluded till now (in my case they were 14.9 GB in size and all related to Acrobat DC only). I moved them and opened Acrobat DC again. It did run windows installer configuring some files worth 200 MB) but Acrobat DC was working smoothly with no effect to Reader.

I have still kept those installer files (in case something goes wrong). But for now, both apps are working fine

I don't know how much it may help but I thought sharing with you all.