How to delete features?

Question

I have been uploading managed code xsn through central admin in development. It's the same infopath project. But I think SharePoint has a bug and it does not delete the old features when uploading a new one. I thought SharePoint would delete or over write existing features.

Today I ran into a big issue. Out of Disk space. I look at the log directory and it's only has 10 mb data as I am only keeping 3 days log.

Then I looked at the feature directory and saw bunch of features that looks like below. Is it okay to select the unwanted features from windows explorer and delete? Will it mess up any references?

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\FT-01-30bcbe11-2e85-4ac5-e633-ac0f71b333ff

See print shot so you know what I am talking about. The latest feature is on the top (solution.xsn.1.0.0.490.1.0.0.480). Rest can go away.

Answer 1

please dont just delete the files ;) , use powershell to deactivate the feature and the unistall it :). If you start deleting folder it could break sharepoint.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms442691.aspx

how have you been upgrading your feature? like so?

Update-SPSolution –Identity YourSolutionName.wsp –LiteralPath “C:\YourSolutionName.wsp” –GacDeployment 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607724.aspx

or upgrade the feature verion ;) and it will update the origional and not create a new feature every time :) .

hope this helps :)

Answer 2

These files are your InfoPath form publishing history. I have the same issue on a test server and tried to remove the older files but this only caused issues on the form. I have not found any other documentation on how to manage these.

On approach is to retract and delete the related solution, back up the feature directory, delete and then re-publish.