NI update and package manager eating hard drive space.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I work with VMs and monitoring VM drive space is one issue I look at every now and then.

The "C:\ProgramData\National Instruments" folder on one of my VMs is using 40GB. Does anyone know the proper way to clean up the NI crap?

Using SpaceSniffer, it show the bulk of it is used by the Update Service and NI Package Manager. I'm sure it's just leftover installers that may be needed.

[JKSH]

26 minutes ago, Michael Aivaliotis said:

Does anyone know the proper way to clean up the NI crap?

Using SpaceSniffer, it show the bulk of it is used by the Update Service and NI Package Manager. I'm sure it's just leftover installers that may be needed.

I don't know if a "proper" way exists, hence https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-Package-Management-Idea/Add-ability-to-reclaim-space-taken-by-cached-packages/idi-p/4024241

I've been manually deleting the *.nipkg files, and the very old folders in C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\Update Service\Installers, without ill effects to my day-to-day work.

I think NI Package Builder or LabVIEW Application Builder can't bundle a dependency if its package or local installer is gone, however.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Ok, now your idea has 2 votes... 😀

Ya, I decided to delete them all manually, and also the Update Service installers, which are probably temporary packaged files for the update service.

[Antoine Chalons]

5 now

[Michael Aivaliotis]

So just adding info here for future googlers.

There is an NI KB article on how to cleanup the cache here: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019KdtSAE&l=en-US

In there it also mentions an ini token that eliminates cache creation completely:

Quote

you can add a token to your nipkg.ini to prevent the caching of packages in the future. The nipkg.ini is located at \%localappdata%\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini.

Make sure you add the token below the [nipkg] line so it looks like:
[nipkg]
cachepackages=false

 

[X___]

Actually, the nipkg.ini is in \ProgramData\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Settings\nipkg.ini

[Michael Aivaliotis]

1 hour ago, X___ said:

Actually, the nipkg.ini is in \ProgramData\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Settings\nipkg.ini

I guess nI needs to update that article. 😉

[jorgecat]

Actually, the nipkg.ini is located at the path specified in the KB (\%localappdata%\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini.)

Edited April 28, 2022 by jorgecat

[LogMAN]

Welcome to LAVA @jorgecat 🏆

As a matter of fact, there can be two files depending when you installed NIPM for the first time.

• \%programdata%\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Packages\nipkg.ini
• \%localappdata%\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini

According to this article, the location changed from %programdata% to %localappdata% in later versions of NIPM but both locations are still supported.

Quote

The INI file for the feed has changed, but the software still references the old INI file. If you have an nipkg.ini file inside C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Settings, delete this file.