Cleaning out folders to recover space

[Mark Phelps]

Win8.1 has gotten bloated -- so I have been searching for stuff to remove.

In my C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\svchost\ folder, I have 109 hidden xxxxxxxxx.exe files, ALL dated 10/19/16 11:29 AM. This folder is consuming 6.5GB of my Windows partition -- and I'd like to reclaim that space.

So, I looked through the various ProgramFiles folders to see what app I installed around that date -- and there is nothing even close to that date.

It is safe for me to empty this folder?

 

[RolandJS]

If your OS and Data partition full image backups onto external media are recent, current -- delete away.

 

[Mark Phelps]

If your OS and Data partition full image backups onto external media are recent, current -- delete away.

Sorry I did not respond sooner -- but I got busy doing other stuff and forgot I did this post.

Anyway -- I made an image backup, cleared out the svchost folder -- and will see what happens. So far (the same day) have not encountered any problems.

NOTE: Did an online search for help on this but the only posts I could find were related to the svchost malware issue.