Is there a way to prevent installs/updates to litter my hard drive with cryptic folders?

Often I find guid-like folder names spread around on my hard drives. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? I think they might come when I install various programs or while updating them (seems like windows update does it too).

I find it very annoying. Especially when some of them won't be deleted because of security stuff. Doesn't Windows have a dedicated temp folder for these cases? Why can't they use that? Or at least clean up after themselves...

Most frequently I find such folders after windows update/install something. Unfortunately there is no way to disable them from being created. You can only hope that the update will finish OK and will cleanup after itself.

As for the deleting of these folders you just need to take ownership of them and you will be able to delete them.