Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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The question others are asking is probably "OK, so what's a C:\I386 directory?"
In a nutshell, it's a copy of Windows, and yes, you can move it, but I don't recommend deleting it completely. It's just too darned useful.
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First I'll bore you with a little trivia: the "I386" name originated as a way to identify what CPU the operating system was for. "I" stands for Intel, and "386" stands for the "80386", the minimum processor required. (The 80386 is an older version of what we now know as the Pentium processors.)
So the I386 directory tree contains a copy of Windows targeted for Intel's 80386 and later processors.
The I386 directory is not the directory that Windows actually runs from, but rather it contains a copy of Windows that you can setup from. Originally it was simply a copy of the I386 directory from your installation CD. You'll probably find "setup.exe" there, which is the Windows XP initial setup program.
Since Windows doesn't run from that directory, it's actually not required to be around at all. You can delete it, and Windows will still continue to run. But Wait! You still, really, don't want to delete it. At least not without saving a copy of it somewhere, somehow. You see, when you install new hardware, Windows will try to install the drivers for it, from your original Windows installation CD-ROM. If you have a copy of the I386 directory from that CD-ROM, Windows can look there instead - much quicker and much more convenient than inserting the CD each time.
And of course if your computer didn't come with a Windows CD-ROM (as I believe it always should, though not all manufacturers do), the I386 directory may be the only place these files are available.
So don't delete it. Move it somewhere else instead. If you have a second hard disk that has room, great. If you have another machine on your local network that has room, it's ok to copy it there too - just keep straight which machine it belongs to.
As an example, let's copy all of C:\I386 to a new directory on the D: drive. We'll do it using the Command Prompt. Press Start, Run, enter CMD and press Enter. In the resulting box, we'll enter the following commands:
- D: - this will make the "D:" drive the current drive.
- MKDIR D:\I386 - create a new "I386" directory at the root of the D: drive.
- CD D:\I386 - make D:\I386 the current directory
- XCOPY C:\I386 /s/h - copy C:\I386 to the current directory. "/s" means copy the contents of all subdirectories, and "/h" means copy all hidden and system files as well.
Here's what that might look like:
The exact files being copied may differ slightly, and there will be several hundred files copied before it's all done. Once it is done, you can delete the original on c:\I386.
Article C2453 - November 4, 2005 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
April 3, 2011 7:35 AM
Leo,
I have a bunch of I386 directories on my hard drive. None are in the C: directory. The biggest one (500MB) is in a personal pictures file which does not make sense. The others are small files in Program file directories or C:\windows\system32\reinstallbackup files. My question, is how did the file end up in my pictures directory and can I delete it.
Thanks for your help.
Robin
06-Apr-2011
April 27, 2011 5:07 PM
I typed in D:- It came up and said . is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. What does this mean? And what can I do to fix it? Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you, Lisa
May 22, 2011 12:22 AM
Lisa: don't type the hyphen/minus. All you need to type is D:
That will switch to the drive you want.
November 21, 2011 9:05 AM
Great to know you can just use to switch drives. I've been using "cd /d" this whole time
July 11, 2012 7:32 AM
Do not delete it for a couple of reasons. You can repair a damaged Windows that will not start, from the recovery console, much more easily by espanding the required file from I386 (e.g corrupt or missing hal.dll). Secondly, I believe some of the Service Packs add files to this directory which are not present on the original CD.
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