Which temp files are ok to DELETE?

[George]

On my PC, there are maybe 100 files in:

C:\Documents and Settings\George\Local Settings\Temp



The files have lots of different extensions like several with ___.htm,
several like this MSIca4ff.LOG, several like this mso4C376.wmf, one or two
that are ___.exe (like a windows media configuration), etc.



1) Is it ok to delete all of them? And the sub folders under
C:....../Temp/subfoldershere?



2) Is there ANY chance that any one of them will be needed by an application
(program) later and cause it not to run, and require re-installation



3) About the folders under this ...temp folder. Someone at Dell said ok to
delete files in them, but better not to delete folders? True? Wouldn't an
application just re-create the folder if it was gone?



Thanks

 

[Anne]

Temp files are just that ... Temporary, so you should be able to delete
them all safely.
Anne.

 

[John]

You can delete all of them safely

 

[George]

Thank you both. What about the sub-folders within a temp directory, are
these 1) something that got used one-time and can be deleted, or 2)
sub-folders that routinely collect temp files everyday and 2a) should not be
deleted or 2b) can still be deleted because if an application needs them, it
will just recreate them?

Thanks.

 

[Anne]

Hi George,
I am a great believer in deleting ALL unnecessary temp files.
I also delete the files in Prefetch and Recent folders. (We all have our
little foibles, lol, this is mine).
It's basic maintenence. None of the temporary files are of any use to
you, so delete all you find.
An application will regenerate the temp file if it needs it.
A.

 

[Parish]

Hi George,
I am a great believer in deleting ALL unnecessary temp files.
I also delete the files in Prefetch and Recent folders. (We all have our
little foibles, lol, this is mine).
It's basic maintenence. None of the temporary files are of any use to
you, so delete all you find.
An application will regenerate the temp file if it needs it.
A.

The annoying thing is all those installers, even some that boast
"Designed for Windows", leave this dross lying around (often the
extracted contents of CAB files). Installation log files are fair
enough, they allow you to review what it did if an app appears to have
not installed properly, but the rest? Installers should tidy up after
themselves - IMHO of course.

Incidentally, all the Unix systems I've used clear out /tmp when they
boot up. I wonder if this is an undocumented feature in Windows that is
disabled by default?

 

[Guest]

You should be able to run Disk Cleanup (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools). One of it's options will be to "Delete Temporary Files". I do this once a week (on each drive in my system) and then defrag the drive(s), right before I run a weekly backup. Think of it as periodic maintenance

JMHO

BillM