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The hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 3

Article ID:947311
Last Review:June 16, 2008
Revision:3.0
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INTRODUCTION

This article describes the hard disk space that is required when you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) on a computer that is already running one of the following versions of Windows XP:
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Home N
Windows XP Home Edition K
Windows XP Home Edition KN
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Windows XP Pro Edition K
Windows XP Pro Edition KN
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Professional N
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005

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MORE INFORMATION

The following tables list the hard disk space requirements for Windows XP SP3.

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Hard disk space that is required if you install Windows XP SP3 from a shared folder on the network

System Restore feature enabled System Restore feature disabled
Working space80 megabytes (MB)80 MB
Files that remove Windows XP SP3256 MB256 MB
Total hard disk space that is required1020 MB
1100 MB peak usage during installation
380 MB

460 MB peak usage during installation
Note The numbers that are listed in this table are estimates. These numbers are not intended to be exact. User’s systems may vary significantly. Therefore, these numbers only represent guidelines to let users know approximately how much free space is required.

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Hard disk space that is required if you install Windows XP SP3 from the Windows XP SP3 CD

System Restore feature enabled System Restore feature disabled
Working space280 MB480 MB
Files that remove Windows XP SP3256 MB256 MB
Total hard disk space that is required1485 MB
1765 MB peak usage during installation
750 MB

1230 MB peak usage during installation
Notes
The numbers that are listed in this table are estimates. These numbers are not intended to be exact. User’s systems may vary significantly. Therefore, these numbers only represent guidelines to let users know approximately how much free space is required.
In these tables, the "Working space" entry describes the hard disk space that is required for files that are used only during the installation process. The working space requirement is temporary. It does not contribute to the total hard disk space requirement.
In these tables, the "Files that remove Windows XP SP3" entry describes the hard disk space that is used for storing the files and the settings that are changed during the installation of the service pack. You can automatically back up the files during the installation of the service pack. These files are required if you want to remove the service pack later.
You must also have 30 MB of free hard disk space on the first primary system partition. The first primary system partition is the disk volume that contains the hardware-specific files that are required to start Windows. For example, the primary system partition contains the Ntldr file, the Boot.ini file, and the Ntdetect.com file.
We recommend that you have 1500 MB of free hard disk space if you install Windows XP SP3 through Microsoft Download Center or 1100 MB of free hard disk space if you install Windows XP SP3 from a shared folder on the network.

However, you can safely install Windows XP SP3 on a computer that has 700 MB of free hard disk space on the active partition. The remaining 800 MB of free hard disk space can be on some other partition on the computer. This remaining 800 MB of free hard disk space is used mainly to store the temporary folder that contains the extracted service pack files.
The actual download size of Windows XP SP3 as obtained from the Windows Update Web site is approximately 70 MB. The download size varies depending on the updates that are installed on the computer.
The actual size of the %Windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Temporary_folder_name folder is approximately 600 MB.
For more information about the hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 1, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
326583 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326583/) Hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 1
For more information about the hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
837783 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837783/) The hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 2
For more information about the system requirements for Windows XP operating systems, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
314865 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865/) System requirements for Windows XP operating systems
If you want to install Windows XP SP3 on more than one computer on a local network, you can use the UNC mode of installation.

Note When you use the UNC mode of installation to install Windows XP SP3, you can save the hard disk space that is required for the extracted Windows XP SP3 files on the local computer.

To install Windows XP SP3 by using the UNC mode of installation, follow these steps:
1.Copy the contents of the Windows XP SP3 CD to a shared folder on the network.
2.Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
3.At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe /x:shared folder name
Note In this command, shared folder name is a placeholder for the folder on the network to which you want to extract Windows XP SP3.
4.Under the shared folder on the network, locate and then double-click the Update folder.

Note The Update folder is located under the i386 folder.
5.Double-click the Update.exe file to install Windows XP SP3.

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APPLIES TO
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3

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Keywords: 
kbexpertisebeginner kbhowto kbinfo KB947311

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