Deleting Product Installer Files That Have Been Copied to My Computer

Issue Details

• When I created an installer with LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI™, or TestStand, I copied the NI installer files included in my deployment to my computer. How can I delete them?
• Is it safe to remove the files saved in C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\packages?
• I need to free up space on my PC. How can I delete unnecessary cached installer packages?
• How can I prevent NI Package Manager from storing cache?

Solution

When you create an installer with LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, or TestStand, you have the option of copying each product installer included in the deployment to your computer. Those files will remain on your system until you uninstall or upgrade the products. Please note that cached packages used by NI Package Manager won't be removed once you uninstall or upgrade a software product, take a look at the Additional Information section for details on how to delete these files.

The installers will be stored in a different location, depending on the operating system that you are using. Here are the file locations for Windows XP, Vista and 7:

Windows XP

<Documents and Settings>\All Users\Application Data\National Instruments\MDF\ProductCache 

Windows 7 or Later

<ProgramData>\National Instruments\MDF\ProductCache

Note: You will be prompted for the disks the next time you build an installer.  You can also select to copy the files to your computer at this time.

These files can be deleted manually or a batch script can be created to automate the process of deletion. To automate this process, refer to Automatically Delete Files on Windows.

Additional Information

NI Package Manager Cache

If you use NI Package Manager (NIPM) for your software installation and updates you might also notice cached packages being stored in the C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\packages directory. The current behaviour of NIPM is that some of these cached packages are never removed, even if the products they contain have since been upgraded or uninstalled.

If saving space is a concern for your system, you can delete the .nipkg files at that location and you can add a token to your nipkg.ini to prevent the caching of packages in the future. The nipkg.ini file is located in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\National Instruments\NI Package Manager.

Make sure you add the token below the [nipkg] line so it looks like:
[nipkg]
cachepackages=false

Installing Software on External Drives

Application software, such as LabVIEW and TestStand, can be installed on an external drive.
However, all drivers must be installed on the root drive (C:). Due to this, you may wish to search your C drive for driver cache, even if using an external drive.