In this question it is asked and answered why mysterious folders appear at the root of my D-drive periodically, named e849ad3686d570a415, 57431c392d6db70ad5bfcd1a6676a241, etc, containing folders like i386 and amd64: they're leftovers from Windows updates. It is also explained there that it is safe to delete those folders.
In fact, there are more similar/related questions:
None of these questions or their answers explain how to prevent it from happening, apart from the obvious conclusion to just disable the root cause (Windows update) entirely.
So my specific question then is: How can I stop this from happening, without resorting to rigorous solutions such as disabling Windows Update, moving over to Linux, etc., and without resorting to creating an after-the-fact solution (e.g. a scheduled task to delete these folders)? Is that possible?
What I've tried so far is looking for a way to find out what specific process generates these folders so I can narrow my search for a solution. I've found this question on ServerFault about a general way to find out such things, but it isn't very helpful. I've tried checking who the owner of those folders is, but MY-PC\Administrators doesn't tell me much either. I've tried dir e849ad3686d570a415 | format-list * in Powershell, but it tells me nothing of interest. I've Googled around but that mainly leads to aforementioned question.
Bottom line:
How can I stop these folders from appearing? Removing them by hand is getting pretty old and writing a script or task to do this periodically "feels dirty".
Answer
Some redistributable installers and/or updates from Microsoft extract their files to a subdirectory (or even root directory!) of the drive with the most free space or your system drive. You cannot do anything to stop this, because it’s the installers’ fault. The only “workaround” would be not to install or update anything.
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