Hi Friend,
I'd always deleted these files/directories.
After, when going to Add/Uninstall programs, when you try to uninstall these patches, windows says it cannot find them and offer you to delete the entry in
Add/Uninstall Programs.
And its all right.
Hope it will help you

What about $NtServicePackUninstall$?

I will remove those files ;)

Here you go:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

Hey, War, that's really cool. Many thanks. Cute. :)

What about $NtServicePackUninstall$?

Thats where you installed SP1 and it keeps a record just in case you want to uninstall it. So it is safe to delete. But to be safe, rename it to something else and reboot to see if anything complains before deleting it fully.

Flanderz suggestion about renaming files is very good information because you can always undo changes without harm. It is a good idea to be able to undo if it is a mistake.

Also another way of looking at this we are not talking about several gigs of files. With the sizes and speed of drives the question to ask is " is it really worth it and what will it really help?" JMHO

Thanks
Dudelive