Random folder keeps appearing

Question

I have an external Hard Drive and from time to time a random folder named something like 2eca741dd6d1f17e12bd34da6e546f appears. I delete it and some days/weeks later it appears again.

The folder contains a file named MpMiniSigStub.exe

What is it?

When I try to delete it, I have to delete it as an administrator. Also, the name isn't the same every time.

It's (most likely) left-over Windows Update folders. they come back each time you do Windows Updates. They also use the drive with the most free space, which is probably your external drive. — Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007, Dec 24 '13 at 17:24
If you disconnect the external when you do updates, they won't show up. Nothing to worry about. mpministigstub is an MS file. — Raystafarian, Dec 24 '13 at 17:26
possible duplicate of Windows Updates Folders (With Strange Names) in C drive, Random directories in c:\ that I cannot delete, What are these folders created on my Western Digital 2TB Mirror? — Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007, Dec 24 '13 at 17:27
MpMiniSigStub.exe specifically is for the automatic updates of Windows Antimalware Signatures used by MSE or Windows Defender. — , Dec 24 '13 at 21:30

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 24 '13 at 17:27

3

Windows updates creates folders with these kinds of names and does so on the volume with the largest percentage of space available.

So if you have a computer with two drives:
1) Internal HDD, say 80GiB, 40GiB full (50%)
2) and an external drive, say 10GiB with 2GiB filled ( 20% full ),
Then it will create these folders on the external drive.

answered Dec 24 '13 at 17:27

Hennes

65,142

Should I delete them? – Shevliaskovic Dec 24 '13 at 17:28
I always deleted them and my windows installation still works fine after 5 years. So I guess they are safe to delete. – Hennes Dec 24 '13 at 17:33

Random folder keeps appearing

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