Deleting Products

If I delete a product, what happens to records in the order table that refer to it? Will I lose those records? I've got many I want to delete, but I'm paranoid...

Thanks

In theory the data you need is stored in the orders tables following each order so it should not be a problem deleting products that you sold ...

However, anything related to reporting that is pulling data from the products tables will be effected ...

If the reports, displays, etc. are only referencing the orders tables, then again, you are fine to delete the product itself ...

Another way to manage this is to set the products_status to 0 so it does not show in the catalog but you retain the information in the admin ...

My main concern is removing the files (they are downloadable products.) I suppose I could just remove the files, leave the product records in place and just set products_status to 0. I think the only ill effect would be that the attribute controller will flag the files as missing, right?

Thanks for your help

If you are on unix and use redirects then the files expire on the customer's order and the files cannot be downloaded in any manner as they are accessed via symbolic links and cannot be directly obtained ... unless something is configured wrong on your server ...

Deleting the downloads or moving to a private directory will prevent that problem for sure ...