Thinkpads Forum

When an update is downloaded with ThinkVantage System Update, where are the files stored? I just downloaded and installed an update and cannot find the install files on the hard drive. I may want to delete them to save hard drive space.

It's all saved in one of the subdirectories of C:\DRIVERS\

Thanks for pointing out that directory but the files are not there. I downloaded new updates yesterday but all files and folders in C:\DRIVERS\ are more than two months old. ThinkVantage System Updates must store its files somewhere else.

I am not sure where System Update puts the files it downloads. When I do manual downloads, I save them to C:\DownloadDirector\. These files are in the form that you see when you go to the driver matrix page. If you double-click on one of these, it extracts the files to a subdirectory in C:\DRIVERS\. From there I would run setup.exe to install the program. I do not use System Update, so I don't have it's directory on my hard drive. I would suspect it might be C:\System Update\ or C:\SystemUpdate\. It's possible you may have to go to Control Panel > Folders Options > View, and choose to Show Hidden Files and Folders to see it.

Thank you, GomJabbar. I think from now on I will use System Update only to find out what new updates are available for my computer and then I will download and install those updates manually. I prefer being able to control where downloaded files are stored and System Update is not transparent in that respect.

On my computer, the System Update files are stored in
C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session
There are a series of folders that contain the updates

ozmann, you are right. I could find the files in the same folder. Thanks a lot!

welcome

For smaller files, I use the System Update or the Software Installer (which should be phased out soon).

However, for large updates such as Rescue and Recovery, some of the ethernet, wirelss files (that are 50Meg and above), I use 3rd party download managers.

What these download managers does is that it speed up the download 5 to 10 times faster and you can resume download if interrupted. DEFINITELY faster than using system update. My favourite are Free Download Manager and lately GigaGet.

What I do is to launch System Update, find out the updates needed for my system, click on 'view review' and see the lenovo url that I can get the update from. Copy these ot my download managers or into any internet explorer to launch the webpage.

After downloading and updating my system, I rerun the system update to ensure that everything is properly updated. With broadband, I find that it is useless for me to keep 200MB to 500MB of drivers inside the C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session I normally delete everything except the system folder inside there. Using 3rd party download managers I can also delete off the downloads after installation.


Hope that help saves some time.

Ideasmiths, I will try to follow your suggestion, that looks like a good approach.

cool~

Good morning everbody. I am new to the thinkpad suite of software since this is my first thinkpad laptop. I have a question regarding the C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session where system update puts the file downloaded for update.

Ideasmith said that s/he remove the files found herein except for the system folders. I am sorry if this is a very noobish question, but can somebody help me determine what is safe to delete in this folder? I want to reclaim hard disk space and this folder alone consumes around 1 gig. Thanks for any help.

dynamicsniper wrote:Good morning everbody. I am new to the thinkpad suite of software since this is my first thinkpad laptop. I have a question regarding the C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session where system update puts the file downloaded for update.

Ideasmith said that s/he remove the files found herein except for the system folders. I am sorry if this is a very noobish question, but can somebody help me determine what is safe to delete in this folder? I want to reclaim hard disk space and this folder alone consumes around 1 gig. Thanks for any help.

only the system folder is non deletable

Thanks Gunston. Though I just want to make it clear that all other files and folders found in the session directory is safe to delete. Is it right?

Hmmm ... I have another question. When using the system update, I learned that it put the downloaded files in the session folder, but when I use the software installer, it seems to look at the 3 folders namely \drivers, \ibmtools and \swtools. Does software installer put it in these folders what it download for update? If so, what files can I safely delete without (meaning the installers).

On a Win7 machine, I found that the files are located at:

c:\programdata\lenovo\systemupdate\session\repository

and not in the locations above.

I found the files in the path c:\programdata\lenovo\systemupdate\session\repository - thank you DesertDyna.

I noticed the driver files in the directories are simply xml files. Is there a way to use these files via script/GPO or execute them to reinstall the driver?

From time to time (especially after we sysprep) certain windows drivers are lost (grpahics driver is most common).

So i just download the file to my T61 and there is no: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\System Update\session
So where does the Software saves the files on?

I have SU version 5.07.0022 on think center machine. I search in C:\Program Files (x86)\Lenovo\System Update and C:\ProgramData\Lenovo\SystemUpdate\session. i have not found any downloaded data there. but at C:\ProgramData\Lenovo\SystemUpdate\session there some xml file in various folder.

getting downloaded files could avoid to re-download it again and again on each machine.