Warning! Deleting these files might cause irreparable damage to your system, no more YouTube, no more Overwatch. Odds are pretty good that you’ve seen a message like that if you’ve ever tried to delete a file that Windows wants to cling to, like you cling to that picture of your ex. Especially if said file is inside the System 32 folder, but what exactly about it is so gosh darn important that makes Windows as cagey and nervous as an Initech during a performance review.
Why do internet trolls advise deleting it? Let’s start with the first pic, many of the files inside of System 32 take the form of dynamic link libraries, or DLLs. These files contain code and data that can be accessed and share by many programs, including Windows itself. The DLLs inside the System 32 folder enable functionality from Control Panel options to error checking, system updates, streaming media support, encryption services, audio and video playback, Direct X rendering, and even the Windows interface itself. I mean it wouldn’t be very easy to use Windows if you couldn’t freaking see what you were doing. System 32 also includes most of your drivers, which you can learn more about up here.
As well as elements of the Windows Kernel, the fundamental code that interfaces Windows with your hardware. Allowing it to work. What that means is that many of these files simply can’t be deleted after you boot into Windows, since they’ve already been loaded into memory. Even deleting other System 32 files will probably end up breaking a number of obvious things on your system. In result your computer refusing to boot the next time you try to turn it on.
Meaning you’ll end up having to run some system recovery of some sort to have any chance of getting it back up and running without a full reformat. This all sounds like stuff you obviously wouldn’t want to get rid of, so why is anyone trying to do it? Well, not surprisingly many non computer savvy folks have no idea what the System 32 folder is at all. Leading to some enterprising trolls spreading a meme that says deleting System 32 will make your system run twice as fast. This particular piece of meme-ry has been making its rounds on the internet since at least the early 2000s. The way it’s usually presented still fools many computer novices. Typically there will be a bit of copy pasta describing System 32 as a folder that Microsoft uses to intentionally hobble your computer’s performance as part of some conspiracy to get you go buy PC tune up software or something. Or even claiming that System 32 is just straight up malware, then using step by step instructions that are designed to look like more credible system tuning tips. Directing users to enter one or two lines on a command prompt to delete the folder.
To be clear there are many people on the web that offer honest advice about how to speed up a slow computer, but in this particular case it’s a giant hoax. The moral of the story is don’t delete System 32
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