February 20th, 2007

Remove Updater5 from My Documents Folder

Well I finally figured out how to remove the Updater5 folder from your My Documents folder. I have written about this problem, as well as many other people, and now here is the solution for us anal retentive people that don’t like our My Documents folder cluttered with application artifacts.

Follow the couple steps I have outlined below and the Updater5 folder will be out of your life forever.

  1. Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater5
  2. Run AdobeUpdaterInstallMgr.exe and wait for the progress bar to finish and show you the following screen.
    Adobe Updater Window
  3. Then click Browse button and change it to any directory you want as shown below.
    Adobe Updater Preferences Window
  4. Now click the OK button and you are done.

And now you should never see the Updater5 folder in your My Documents folder ever again. This solution has worked both on my Windows XP as well as Windows Vista boxes that I have tried it on. For Mac users you can try hunting down the same updater program and going through the steps however I don’t have a step-by-step guide for you.

This solution seems a little more elegant than many of the other solutions I have seen floating around on the net. So pass this around and thank the stars that Adobe made this configurable, even thought it is hidden away and should have never been defaulted to the My Documents folder in the first place.

Update: Many people have been asking me if they can offer me anything for getting rid of the annoying Updater5 folder. Honestly the answer is no, I do this because I enjoy doing it, and I hope the readers will come back to check out my other content. But if you would really like to do something for me, please visit one of the sponsors to the right or the left. They are how I support this site and keep it running.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Programming, Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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13 Responses to “Remove Updater5 from My Documents Folder”

  1. Coder Journal : Adobe what where you thinking? Says:
    February 20th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    [...] (2007-2-20) I have found a way to change the temp folder that Adobe updates [...]

  2. Smokey Says:
    March 6th, 2007 at 7:00 am

    This was most helpful–thanks.

  3. LTL Says:
    May 21st, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    good stuff thanks! I have seen several of the other suggestions none of which worked. Good job!

  4. Slide Says:
    May 22nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    Awesome. I’ve been deleting that stupid Updater5 folder from My Documents forever!

  5. rokdd Says:
    September 28th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Hi everybody who try to remove nerving folders :)

    I wrote a short tip for removing the ‘Adobe Scripts’ folder from my documents (click homepage)

  6. Brian Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    Wee! Thanks for making this public knowledge.

  7. Martti Saarilahti Says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    Thanks

  8. Ksen Says:
    January 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

    I don’t have the Updater 5 in my Common Files! What do i do?!

  9. Celina Di Pisa Says:
    February 29th, 2008 at 2:23 am

    Thank you Nick! I did as you suggested and it worked: No more update5 but…
    The Documents folder keeps on duplicating: I have my usal full Documents Folder and an empty Documents folder (where update5 used to be) there. You delete it and there it comes again.
    Any idea?
    Grazie!
    C

  10. dyru Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    thanks

  11. Joanne Says:
    June 18th, 2009 at 3:47 am

    Hi. I just researched this “Updater 5″ issue and came across your old fix (dated 2007!) to get that folder out of My Documents. The thing is, I did the procedure as described, but afterwards the Updater 5 folder was still in My Documents, and NOT under C:\Windows\Temp where I directed it via the Browse tab.

    So, I manually deleted the Updater 5 folder, which contained a couple of new folders in it after your procedure (all still empty though), and am hoping all will be okay – after a restart, maybe?

    Here’s another weird one for ya – A while back I suddenly discovered a “Stationery” folder and a “Notes” folder in My Documents, I can’t remember now if I may have done some kind of update to initiate it. They each contain lots of designs, etc to use for each function, but I’d like to place them elsewhere, maybe under Start/Programs, just NOT in My DOcuments!

    Have you ever heard of this before, and do you know if it’d be okay to move them there?

    THanks for any advice/ideas/recommendations in advance — joanne.

  12. Adam Says:
    December 29th, 2009 at 2:21 am

    Thank you so much, have been deleting that forever.

    To be honest the nicest thing was just knowing which program was putting it there, thought it was Google Chrome.

    Cheers again.

  13. koenigworks9 Says:
    January 6th, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    HI!!

    JUST rename the two executables in that folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater5).
    Updater will never be called again, folder will never be created nowhere.

    For example, aaa.exe –> aaa.exe_

    You can rollback this change by returning the filename back.

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