Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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Msocache is another of those "magical" directories (not a file) that somehow just appears one day. Since we're not looking for this kind of thing constantly it's easy to miss exactly when it showed up.
Here's one clue, though - MSO stands for MicroSoft Office.
Yep. Microsoft Office is trying to be helpful.
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First, Microsoft does have a Knowledgebase article on this, though the title's not particularly helpful: Local Install Source (Msocache).
The bottom line is that it's simple a local copy of Microsoft Office's installation source. Put another way, it's a copy of portions of the Microsoft Office installation CD. Why? so that you don't have to insert the CD when you add a feature, perform a repair operation, or install service packs and patches.
Msocache is created, quoting the KB article:
...if the following conditions are true:
- One of the available hard drives has more than 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of free disk space available.
- The hard disk with sufficient space is not a removable drive or a network drive.
Personally that seems kind of arbitrary, but there ya go.
You can delete the folder, but, that same Knowledgebase article goes on to say, "Never delete the MSOCACHE folder by using Microsoft Windows Explorer." Why, I do not know. They suggest using the Windows Disk Cleanup Wizard.
Article C2461 - November 17, 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.
March 4, 2009 6:44 AM
I lost my Graphics file and when I went looking for it I found it in a MSOcache file.
How could that happen.Ciao, Marilyn
April 30, 2009 6:49 PM
MSOCache is annoying @ best especially when it installs / appears on a disk that's not C:\ (which is where it should be, on C:\);
I don't know the method they programmed office to search for available space but it would seem to be that it checks from the CD Drive letter and then goes down one at a time rather than first checking C:\ which is what it should do (bad programming I guess, Oh yeah, it's MS)
the next time I install I'll try removing all the drive letters except the CD / DVD drive and C:\
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you can move the Office 2003 MSOCache from any drive to any drive using any method of file transfer (windows exploder, command window, etc.), just do a registry edit to search for MSOCache and change the drive letter indicated in each entry to the new location doing it from an administrator account = success
July 22, 2009 8:50 AM
You said MSO cache is about 200 MB; mine is 3.5 GB!
December 30, 2010 3:43 PM
Welllll..............
i thought i would just drop to dos and erase my unneeded msocache folder hahaha
i typed "erase c:\msocache\*.* /s /f /q"
i am now reinstalling windows!!!!
September 16, 2012 6:54 AM
I know you posted this article 7 years ago which seems like an eternity in the tech world but it still is timley. The MSOCACHE is still an issue. I wanted to add: The reason they ask you NOT to delete using Windows Explorer is because of all the path statemtents pointing to resources in the MSOCACHE. If you use the cleanup tool it will remove the pointers so that MS Office doesn't try to use those resources when you add a feature to office, instead it will prompt you for the CD. And there you have it :-)