Removing unwanted folders

Maineman

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A friend of mine has a laptop running XP. In the folder directory he has maybe 30 folders with very long alphanumeric names. They look like " nhsue873kinh289uage4ty7cne" . When I open them some are empty but others have file names that start with dotfx or similar. I can get the exact file name if necessary. Am told these are update files and should not be removed.

No computer I have ever had or worked on had these folders, except for maybe one or two, and all have had multiple updates.

Was thinking of saving his data and reloading the OS. Does anyone know what these folders / files are, if I can safely remove them and how to get rid of them besides deleting them one at a time? Don't know as they cause much of a problem but they sure make navigating the folder structure very difficult.
 

Maineman

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Yes they are. The complete file names are dotnetfx20 or 30 or 35 etc. Why does he have so many folders that contain these files. As I said, I have never seen a computer that had as many of these folders as he has.

Thanks
 

Maineman

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I assume then I should be able to delete previous versions of .net without any problems.

I downloaded Win XP SP 3 on another friends computer and got one of those folders with the long alphanumeric character names. Opening it told me it was the SP3 update so I know not to delete it. That is the only folder of that type she has on her computer where the guy with the laptop has about 30 of them.

Thanks