Recovering disk space after installing SP2

so, I got the panny image cd to work, but it was sp1.
Installed sp2, and my os install is close to 5gb now. I searched, and found this article

I have found you may just delete the $NTServicePackUninstall$ folder (back it up first, if you think you'll ever want to uninstall).
But sp2 also creates a folder called windows\servicepackfiles\i386, unto which it stores the windows file protection files.
But it also leaves the c:\windows\i386 folder in place.

Can I delete the windows\i386 folder? (I don't think so, since windows natively looks here for anything it needs)
what about windows\servicepackfiles\i386? It's my understanding that this i386 folder is just a backup of the original files. Why can't wfp use the files in windows/i386?

it's ridiculous that sp2 will cause 2gb of backed up crap and unnecessary stuff to be left on the drive...

 

I always delete all these $NTServicePackUninstall$ and turn off system restore and page files. This make it as small as I can get it. Handy when making a clean Ghost image.

Be careful when deleting sytem file or folders. I have done this....then it would not boot.

 

Yeah, I just found out hiberfile.sys was 1.7gb (disabled hibernate, I don't use it anyway), and pagefile.sys was 1.4gb (changed it to "let windows manage virtual memmory"). Now that I've adjusted those, and deleted the sp uninstal folders I feel better with close to 2gb free.