Temporary Internet Files growing out of control.

[rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski]

I have the size of the Temporary Internet Files in IE6 running under
Windows Me to use no more than 400 MB of disk space. However, it looks like
that is being ignored, and the Temporary Internet Files is now bloated to
about 2 gigs in size. Even 2 year old web pages are still saved. This is a
problem as on my 20 GB hard drive I am using 18 GB so far.

What would happen if I under Tools -> Internet Options just choose the
option to delete all Temporary Internet files, but not also choose the
option to delete cookies? Would all the stored passwords still remain in IE?
Basically, I want to save my cookies and stored passwords. As for the old
web pages, images, etc. stored, giving them the heave-ho is OK by me.

Is the Tools -> Internet Options strategy I list above a safe way to free
up some disk space while not losing anything important?

 

[mikey]

cookies should not be disturbed.
you can always export them first.
also check the box for delete offline content as well.



(e-mail address removed)



I have the size of the Temporary Internet Files in IE6 running under
Windows Me to use no more than 400 MB of disk space. However, it looks like
that is being ignored, and the Temporary Internet Files is now bloated to
about 2 gigs in size. Even 2 year old web pages are still saved. This is a
problem as on my 20 GB hard drive I am using 18 GB so far.

What would happen if I under Tools -> Internet Options just choose the
option to delete all Temporary Internet files, but not also choose the
option to delete cookies? Would all the stored passwords still remain in IE?
Basically, I want to save my cookies and stored passwords. As for the old
web pages, images, etc. stored, giving them the heave-ho is OK by me.

Is the Tools -> Internet Options strategy I list above a safe way to free
up some disk space while not losing anything important?

 

[Jan Il]

Hi rfgdxm

Sounds like you may have a corrupted folder. Here's one thing you can
do...and it's really high-tech, so pay close attention.. <g>

Go to the folder that has your favorites. It is in C:\Windows on my ME,
but, run a Search for Favorites to find the Folder if you don't know where
it is. Then you can open the folder and edit out all the ones you don't
want, by date if you wish. Then create a new folder called something like
My Favorites and copy all the Favorites from the old folder to the new one,
then delete to old folder and reboot. After that, delete the old folder
and reboot. A new folder will be created by Windows (ever the Mother hen)
and you can then copy all the files from the My Favorites into the new
folder and it they should be in the Favorites lineup.

You can also take a look here for the more technical information:

Corrupt Favorites Folder

Get rid of the malware, and then create a new Favorites folder as per
the instructions at the URL below:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers3.htm#favorites


If these steps do not resolve your problem, please post back to this thread
with the details and any error messages.

Hope this helps

Jan
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit.
Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.

How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski]

Hi rfgdxm

Sounds like you may have a corrupted folder. Here's one thing you can
do...and it's really high-tech, so pay close attention.. <g>

Go to the folder that has your favorites. It is in C:\Windows on my
ME, but, run a Search for Favorites to find the Folder if you don't
know where it is. Then you can open the folder and edit out all the
ones you don't want, by date if you wish. Then create a new folder
called something like My Favorites and copy all the Favorites from
the old folder to the new one, then delete to old folder and reboot.
After that, delete the old folder and reboot. A new folder will be
created by Windows (ever the Mother hen) and you can then copy all
the files from the My Favorites into the new folder and it they
should be in the Favorites lineup.

You can also take a look here for the more technical information:

Corrupt Favorites Folder

Get rid of the malware, and then create a new Favorites folder as per
the instructions at the URL below:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers3.htm#favorites


If these steps do not resolve your problem, please post back to this
thread with the details and any error messages.

Hope this helps

I'm not sure that answers my question. I'd of course backup cookies and
Favorites before trying anything. I'm most worried about the stored
passwords. I'd guess deleting the whole Temporary Internet Files folder
would lose those. Basically, I want to save all I listed previously, and
delete the rest of the junk. It's all the old webpages that are taking up
all the space.

 

[Jan Il]

Hi rfgdxm/Robert

If you want to be more selective about your cookie handling, click the
Advanced button. Put a check in the box to over ride the automatic cookie
handling. Then select how you want to handle cookies. Don't forget to
click apply when you have selected the settings you want.

also...

Here's a small utitlity that might help with the cookies that you want to
keep.
How to Manage Cookies in Internet Explorer 6
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q283185

Here are a couple of other free utilities that can help you sort your
cookies.
Save the ones you want, and 'burn' the others. ;-)

The Coolie Jar:
http://www.spychecker.com/program/cookiejar.html

IECookiesView - view and manage your cookies
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/iecookies.html

In the long run, there may be a few sites you will have to redo your
passwords.

Hope this helps

Jan
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

Please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit.
Replies are posted only to the newsgroup for the benefit or other readers.

How to make a good newsgroup post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm




..

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP IE/OE]

I have the size of the Temporary Internet Files in IE6 running
under Windows Me to use no more than 400 MB of disk space. However,
it looks like that is being ignored, and the Temporary Internet Files
is now bloated to about 2 gigs in size. Even 2 year old web pages are
still saved. This is a problem as on my 20 GB hard drive I am using
18 GB so far.

What would happen if I under Tools -> Internet Options just choose
the option to delete all Temporary Internet files, but not also
choose the option to delete cookies? Would all the stored passwords
still remain in IE? Basically, I want to save my cookies and stored
passwords. As for the old web pages, images, etc. stored, giving them
the heave-ho is OK by me.

Is the Tools -> Internet Options strategy I list above a safe way
to free up some disk space while not losing anything important?

If you don't delete cookies you shouldn't lose any passwords.
I recommend setting TIF to 50 MB.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

 

[Don Varnau]

Hi,
There's no reason to not empty the TIF folder regularly from Internet
Options> General. You won't lose Favorites, passwords or cookies (unless you
specifically delete cookies.) Also, it's often recommended that the TIF
folder be kept at 50-60 MB. A larger cache will be more prone to become
corrupt and cause problems.

If you have a 2 GB cache with the TIF folder set to 400 MB, you probably
have a damaged index.dat file and should delete the entire TIF folder.
Here's the process for WinME:

Insert the WinMe bootdisk and restart. Select Minimal from the menu.
From A:\ (type and press Enter after each command)(Confirm each command
with Y if necessary)
C:
cd \windows
smartdrv
deltree tempor~1
Remove the disk and restart via Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Note: Create a bootdisk from Ctrl Panel> Add/remove programs> Startup disk.
Follow the prompts.

Hope this helps,
Don
[MS MVP IE/OE]

 

[rfgdxm/Robert F. Golaszewski]

If you don't delete cookies you shouldn't lose any passwords.
I recommend setting TIF to 50 MB.

So am I to understand the passwords are stored in the cookies? As a
conservative first try, I backed up cookies and favorites, and then dumped
all the rest of the TIFs. Took a while for that to finish; not surprising as
there was over 2 gigs in TIFs to ditch. I then rebooted. 2.3 gigs of disk
space was freed up. When I opened IE, only thing odd was that my Google
Toolbar had vanished?! Easy enough to download and install that again from
Google. All the favorites, cookies and passwords are still there. I reset
the TIF max size to 50 MB. I'll have to keep an eye that this doesn't keep
growing indefinitely. Since I am on a fast DSL connection at the moment, I
have no interest in reading offline.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE]

Some passwords are stored in cookies. Others are stored in the Registry.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

 

[Guest]

Hi Robert.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned a likely reason why your TIF cache got so
large in terms of disk space consumed: cluster (disk block) size.

Because of the way the file system handles affairs, even a 1-byte long file
can take 4 to 128 KBytes on disk. Thus, it's not unheard of (in fact, can be
totally NORMAL) that 400 MB of very small files (potentially tens or hundreds
of thousands of files) when measured by file size can actually CONSUME 1-2 Gb
(measured by slack/unused space consumed as it resides on the disk).

To see what your TIF folder is actually consuming on disk, you can use
Windows Explorer to browse to C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local
Settings, right-click and select "Properties" on "Temporary Internet Files".
Note the discrepency between "Size" and "Size on Disk". Even with low
numbers of files (1000-2000) you will see that size on disk is significantly
larger than Size. The difference is exponentially larger the more files you
get.

To draw this as a mental picture for you, your hard drive is divided up into
equal-sized chunks of space, let's say for this example, 8Kb each. Thus:

File Size -> Space Consumed
1 byte -> 8KB (8192 bytes)
100 bytes -> 8KB (8192 bytes)
8Kb (8192b) -> 8Kb (8192 bytes)
8200 bytes -> 16Kb (16384 bytes)

As you can see, in this example there can potentially be very close to 8Kb
PER FILE wasted on disk. This issue is a much larger problem when you have
16Kb+ clusters, or worse, using a RAID (multi-disk) stripe set with 64- or
128Kb blocks.

-Dan