Files in Temp directories & related issues.

[Dinosaur]

Windows 98SE

Windows Explorer does not show some files, even though attributes are not system or hidden. Windows Explorer does not display the true names of certain files.

After using Disk cleanup, I still have a lot of temporary files.

There are several directories with strange names under Windows\Temp\. Total 37 files about 5 million bytes. Included are .dll, .gif, .bmp, .wav & .x32 files. There are several .tmp files with zero bytes which cannot be deleted (access denied).

There are several directories with strange names under Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\ Total about 3700 files about 31 million bytes. Included are .html, .gif, .jpg files. There are many cookie files. A utility I have does not show any files with cookie in the name. Apparently Windows Explorer has special knowledge and shows various files as cookie files, but does not show their true file names. I have seen other files displayed by Windows Explorer under phoney names (Mostly associated with the Recycle Bin). I have also seen files not displayed by Windows Explorer even though the attributes would suggest that they should be displayed.

Does anybody understand any of the above? Is there a document I can find somewhere that explains it?

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Gouverneur, the Dinosaur from pre-compter era.
Eschew Obfuscation!
If one hundred million people believe a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.

[Steve]

Hi Dinosaur,

Windows loves to hang onto junk files. IE REALLY loves to hang on to junk files. Temp files are often the remains of programs you have downloaded from the net. In normal usage, you really don't need the contents of the temp. folder. It's safe to empty it. Internet explorer hangs on to a lot of files. Cookies, history etc. One folder in IE is the index.dat file. This is a list of every web site you have ever been to. Why does Internet Explorer want to save such a list? Heh heh, I'll let your imagination do the work.

So what can be done? Spider. It's a little program that cleans most of this junk out. You can check it out and D/L it HERE.

Here's some info on those pesky cookies. There are a few good software programs to help you manage cookies. I use Norton Clean Sweep and of course Spider.

Good luck, Dinosaur. It's an interesting topic. Search the PCGuide forums and Google for info. I'm sure you'll get plenty of good response here.

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[pentachris]

I remember reading (somewhere in the Windows Annoyances website, I believe) that anything in c:\temp is safe to delete as long as it hasn't been modified since you last booted into Windows. This is the rule of thumb I go by when cleaning up.

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Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

[This message has been edited by pentachris (edited 02-18-2002).]

[mjc]

I use a batch file (original from LangaList) that actually deletes the whole Temp directory...Windows will recreate it on the next boot. Plus I have moved the Temporary Internet Files (TIF) to a ramdisk...so when I power down **poof**...off to the land of scrambled eclectrons they go....(I haven't moved the cookies there but I use a cookie blocking program and only allow a couple of sites cookies to be set...). A couple of things I have noticed, since I manage my swapfile, have my TIF located on a ramdrive and don't take in cookies from everywhere: I don't have to defrag as often (I can go several weeks and only hit 3% fragmentation.....) and I haven't noticed any drop in performance by allowing a portion of my RAM to be dedicated to something other than Windows (I have 192MB and run about an 18 - 20MB ramdrive).

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Paul Komski]

Dinosaur The temporary internet files are a funny batch of folders. I think of them like a giant composite website. They contain the links/webpage-html info plus the other files (notably pic files) that are needed to display the webpages that you visit. They are created/refreshed when you visit a website. The cookies are information text files placed there by certain websites. You can delete all but the cookies from the InternetOptions<>General Tab but not the underlying .dat files, which also keep growing in size. To manage these you need a program like Spider (as Steve mentioned) or TweakIE. There are many cookie management programs; I use CookieWall when using IE but Opera (which I use more and more) has its own inbuilt cookie manager.

So why (cookies apart) are they kept there? (BTW you can also set IE to delete them when you have finished browsing, which means that when you later look in the folders all you will see is the cookies). Theoretically they are there to help you browse more quickly. The information stored in this "cache" (literally a hidden store of goodies) supposedly means that when you return to the same site it should load quicker because the information is already stored on your disk; though IMHO it makes very little difference and I'm not on broadband. This is fine until the cache gets huge when it can start to actually impede not only browsing but the functioning of the computer more generally. If everyone had broadband I guess that the TIF folder might become redundant (bar the cookies of course!!)

I like the idea of your setup mjc but how do you manage to keep your couple of cookies stored, while the rest of the files go pooooof!?


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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
Citation du mois: "There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

[mjc]

I use CookieWall also....I keep the Cookie folder on C:\ the rest I moved to the ramdisk....use the a line on the autoexec file to set the path for the temp directory....in IE I used the move folder under settings for the TIF and made sure the path was correct in the registry...the details I got from here...


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mjc
Links list:Computer Links

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.