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:
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
Jin: You can copy and paste, but if there is an error (1 file does not copy or something like that) then the copy process will stop. With XCOPY you can use /c to continue even if errors occur, this will save you lots of trouble/effort. You can also use /Q to copy quickly (xcopy is much faster than copy and paste). For these two reasons I always use XCOPY for large copies.
To get a list of possible switches, type XCOPY /?
Vaishnav: Look for I386 in C:\Windows or search the C drive for it. Otherwise just find a windows cd for the version you have.
Sunking: You can probably copy the I386 dir from the windows CD.
Hope that helps. Kleinbaas from www.searchourworld.com :-)
Posted by: kleinbaas at April 1, 2010 1:46 AMLeo,
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
Posted by: Robin at April 3, 2011 7:35 AM
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.
Posted by: lisa at April 27, 2011 5:07 PMThank you, Lisa
Lisa: don't type the hyphen/minus. All you need to type is D:
That will switch to the drive you want.
Posted by: Chris at May 22, 2011 12:22 AMGreat to know you can just use to switch drives. I've been using "cd /d" this whole time
Posted by: silentg at November 21, 2011 9:05 AM