Windows Vista SP1 File Removal Tool (Vsp1cln.exe) Reclaims Disk Space
After installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), you probably will notice that the free disk space of your system hard drive will reduce significantly. The additional space used and occupied by Vista SP1 is used to store Vista RTM files so that system can be reverted to old RTM version when users decide to uninstall the service pack. If you have installed SP1 and decided to keep it, Microsoft has packaged SP1 with Vsp1cln.exe File Removal Tool to reclaim disk space.
Windows Vista SP1 Deployment Guide describes that vsp1cln.exe File Removal Tool as following:
Windows Vista SP1 File Removal Tool Vsp1cln.exe is an optional tool that you can run after you install SP1. This tool removes older versions of components that have been updated in SP1, which are stored during the installation in case you need to uninstall SP1 later. Saving these older components increases the amount of disk space used.. Typically, you should run Vsp1cln.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1. You can use this tool both online and offline, but you must have SP1 installed. You cannot uninstall SP1 after you run this tool on an image.
To run Windows Vista SP1 File Removal Tool, open a command prompt (Cmd) or simply press “Winkey + R” keyboard shortcut. Then enter the following command:
Vsp1cln.exe
Once cleaning process completed, several hundreds megabytes of disk space will be freed, with reports saying around 800 MB, depending on edition of Vista installed. For advanced users,there are plenty of switches and options available to Vsp1cln.exe:
VSP1CLN.exe [/h] | [/o: offline Windows files folder path] [/quiet]
/? or /h: display Vsp1cln commands list.
/o:[offline windows files folder path]: location of Windows Vista offline image that wants to remove RTM files
/quiet: silent execution, no display.
/verbose: display extra details.
There is no download needed, as Vsp1cln.exe comes included with SP1. Note that once ran, SP1 cannot be uninstalled. For those who really run out of disk space, Vista Junk Cleaner script can also be used to delete unwanted files and reclaim more space.
Windows Vista SP2 includes Service Pack Cleanup Tool (compcln.exe) instead.
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Entries (RSS)
February 3rd, 2010 16:18
[...] Use Windows Vista SP1 File Removal Tool (Vsp1cln.exe) or Service Pack Cleanup Tool (compcln.exe) in SP2 [...]
February 2nd, 2010 04:01
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709655(WS.10).aspx
For those who have Win Vista64 refer to the above link.
Articles like this tell only half the story. They ASSUME that everybody is using WinVista32!!
July 28th, 2009 19:28
Thanks for the tip – bought me about 1.6Gb of space.
March 29th, 2009 22:11
saved me abt 1gb on Vista Ultimate
thx a bundle 
March 26th, 2009 00:23
every time i try to use this program i get to where it says Would you like to continue? (Y/N): i press Y but it just exits and the folder remains the same size do i have to be in safe mode i already ran it as administrator but the same thing happens any ideas?;
July 23rd, 2008 08:20
i ran this and it cleaned up about 600 megs in vista home basic:D
thanks!
June 30th, 2008 16:27
It´s a great utility but like you said only use if you want to keep sp1.
February 6th, 2008 01:19
[...] feel free to leave a comment in the forum. Note that if you have installed Vista SP1, you can clean off and delete backup RTM files with Vsp1cln.exe File Removal Tool too. Get help or contribute tips or tricks at My Digital Life [...]