Windows – How to disable Windows 7 MSI logging

loggingtemporary-fileswindows 7

I ran CCleaner just now and found that it wanted to free 14 GB from my Windows temp files. I took a look and they are being stored at C:\Windows\Temp, and they are some sort of MSI log file. Google tells me these are installation log files, but everything is about how to enable them, and I can't figure out how to disable them. This frequently happens and it sucks up a lot of space on my SSD.

Here's a sampling of the first few lines of the many log files:

=== Verbose logging started: 7/19/2014  2:01:13  Build type: SHIP UNICODE 5.00.7601.00  Calling process: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\mscorsvw.exe ===
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:729]: Resetting cached policy values
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:729]: Machine policy value 'Debug' is 0
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:729]: ******* RunEngine:
           ******* Product: {9C593464-7F2F-37B3-89F8-7E894E3B09EA}
           ******* Action: 
           ******* CommandLine: **********
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:729]: Client-side and UI is none or basic: Running entire install on the server.
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:729]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:731]: Cloaking enabled.
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:731]: Attempting to enable all disabled privileges before calling Install on Server
MSI (c) (24:F4) [02:01:13:732]: Incrementing counter to disable shutdown. Counter after increment: 0
MSI (s) (B4:88) [02:01:13:734]: Running installation inside multi-package transaction {9C593464-7F2F-37B3-89F8-7E894E3B09EA}
MSI (s) (B4:88) [02:01:13:734]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (s) (B4:B8) [02:01:13:735]: Resetting cached policy values

There are hundreds of these files with a name like MSI#####.LOG, with the # being a letter or number. Even if I delete them they come back a few days or weeks later.

I have tried the solution given here to disable the logging but it did not work.

How can I turn these off completely?

Best Answer

Applications and/or the system should not place anything in that directory for long term storage. You should have no issue deleting them.

As for the logging, you can delete the registry setting that turns it on. Go to 

Local Computer>Software>Policies>Microsoft>Windows>Installer

If there is a key of "Logging", delete it (maybe write down the value first).

Now if you are on a domain, the admins may force this setting, so you many not be able to do this. Also, various applications will continue to dump data into that directory (Office 365, for sure).

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