Dug into this a bit.  Most of the files
appear in the C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution
tree.  Apparently this subtree can be entirely
deleted after stopping the 'wuauserv' service.
When 'wuauserv' is restarted the tree is rebuilt
from scratch and the next time Windows Update
is run the subtree fills-out.

I presume that MS decided there is no point
in having systems backup these files and
therefore caused VSS to disappear them.

I have excluded the entire SoftwareDistribution
tree from backups not only on the W2K8 system
but on the W2K3R2 and XP systems as well
as the tree has no persistent value and
is in a state of constant churn, thus wasting
space on the backup hard drive.

VSS does not exclude the entire tree.  But the
main thing retained in this case is DataStore.edb
which contains the history of WU updates.
I find this information of no value and it's
a big file that burns much backup storage.
The Windows Update settings are stored somewhere
else (probably the registry) and are not
impacted by deleting SoftwareDistribution.

The other area excluded by VSS is
C:/ProgramData/Microsoft/RAC.  Don't know
what it is but presumably the same logic that
applies to SoftwareDistribution applies here.
RAC has few files and is small, so I didn't
bother excluding it explicitly.


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