Temporary files accumulating

[Wesley Vogel]

Keep having fun.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

Have now deleted them, thanks

Delete them. Whatever process created them must not have been very good
to not clean up after itself. 2002 Wow!

You can delete files in TEMP folders. If you are unsure, reboot and
check the folder(s) again. XP will not let you delete a file that is in
use. Also if you just installed software you should reboot. Then check
the folder(s) again. Some programs require these files after a reboot.
It is good practice to always reboot after installing any software.

If a file ends with .TMP they are OK to delete. TMP means temporary.
You can't hurt anything deleting tmp files, unless you just installed
some new program. Most well mannered programs will delete tmp files
when you reboot.

If you try to select and delete all the tmp files in a folder and if any
of them are in use, you'll get an error message. Try to delete a few at
a time to avoid the error message. But, try to delete them all first.

If you're using ZoneAlarm, ZA has at least one tmp file that is almost
always in use.


In

Since I now know how to access Temp folder (thanks to this thread), I
thought I'd clear it.
Got error message that 2 files were "Read only, do you still want to
delete" Said files are IEC2C4.tmp and IEC2D7.tmp.
Both are 338kb and both show modified 2002!
Looked in properties and both show "Unknown"
Did search for both but no results.
Is it usual for read only files to be in Temp folder?
Should I delete or leave well alone?

Wesley Vogel wrote:
To open...
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Temp folder

Click Start | Click Run | Type: %tmp% | Click OK

Doesn't matter if it's Hidden or not.

~DF[random numbers].tmp files can be created by almost anything. Just
open a Word doc and do nothing else and you will have at least three of
them.

ZoneAlarm can and will create
C:\WINDOWS\Temp\ZLT06a49.TMP
and it can not be deleted because it is in use by ZoneAlarm.

Type: temp in Start | Run to open the folder.

Help and Support Center Index is blank with a red X mark
And, "Related Topics" link does not work
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/helpctrindex.htm


In SAM <[email protected]> hunted and pecked:
I have XP Professional running on a 40GB HD partitioned into C and D
drives of 20GB each.

I recently attempted to defrag C drive - error message advised that I
had insufficient space to complete a full defrag. Surprising since
programs took up only 8GB of the 20GB. I did however uninstall a
couple of programs I hardly use in an effort to free up space but this
had no effect.

After a sherlock holmes type investigation I found that the cuprit was
the the C;\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Temp
folder. I deleted all these 1400 odd files and the defrag was clean
and successful.

I was not aware of the existance of the temporary folder because (as I
now know) it is a hidden folder.

My problem is that since taking this action two things have happened:

1) Booting up takes a longer than usual and
2) Two temporary files are created (which remain forever) at each
boot up and occasionally during the day as a result of doing
something that I haven't quite worked out yet but seems it might be
as a result of doing something in windows explorer - like deleting a
file - but not always!.

The only other odd thing is that all links in "Help and Support" no
longer work eg, "related topics". Discovered this whilst trying to
troubleshoot my problem.

Apart from the above everything works fine and fast once the computer
has booted up.

I have an automatically updated virus scanner (CA Anti Virus) and have
done several complete scans of both C and D drives with nothing found.

The temporary files seem to come often in pairs of size 144kb and
588kb and always have the name ~DF[random numbers].tmp. Some days
there can be 20 or more of these accumulating in the Temp folder.
Obviously they had been accumulating for many months before I
realised the problem. Unfortunately I had deleted the files without
looking at the date of the first one so I'm not exactly sure of how
long this has been going on - quite a long time it seems to take up 8
or 9GB of space!

A system restore has had no effect - probably because it has been
going on longer than 3 months.

Would appreciate any help anyone can give me to solve this problem
without having to completely reformat or reload XP completely.

Thanks.

 

[Stevo]

Some other places you may not have cleaned lately (or even be aware
of) are the Temporary Internet Files and Cookies. Some of these
files can be harmful and should be cleaned about once a month.
Internet Explorer>Tools>Internet Options>Delete Files.

Stevo