Deleting tmp files

[Richard]

I have many, many TMP files in various folders. Is it
safe to delete these files in ALL cases????

Under what circumstances should I NOT delete them???

 

[Jim Eshelman]

I have many, many TMP files in various folders. Is it
safe to delete these files in ALL cases????

Under what circumstances should I NOT delete them???

It's hard to give a universal answer to this because it's always possible
that some application will come up with its own way of doing things that
will be an exception -- but in every case actually known to me, the answer
is yes, if Windows will *let* you delete them, you can do so.

Single exception known to me: If you are part way through installing a
program that requires a reboot before finishing, don't empty the Temp
folder. It may have something needed on the reboot.

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows
http://aumha.org/
http://forum.aumha.org/

Did you find this newsgroup on the web? A newsreader like Outlook Express
will make your online life a lot easier. Get better help!
See: http://aumha.org/win4/supp1b.htm and
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/howto/default.asp

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hey Richard,

If you're not sure, run diskcleanup and only delete the files it offers you.

my computer/right click on each drive one at a time and select
properties/disk cleanup

Paul

 

[Jim Eshelman]

Hey Richard,

If you're not sure, run diskcleanup and only delete the files it
offers you.

That's at least safe... but not very effective. Disk Cleanup does a lousy
job of cleaning things up, in my experience.

And that doesn't necessarily protect you from the rare genuine problem. If
you installed software that required a reboot and, before rebooting, ran
Disk Cleanup, it would happily let you delete the temp files needed by the
install. It has no "intelligence" to detect the future need.

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows
http://aumha.org/
http://WinSupportCenter.com/

Did you find this newsgroup on the web? A newsreader like Outlook Express
will make your online life a lot easier. Get better help!
See: http://aumha.org/win4/supp1b.htm and
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/howto/default.asp

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Jim,

I think you're being a little pedantic, if not downright picky

Deleting temporary files, halfway through an install is rather a special
case, and if we're going start accounting for special cases, answers are
going to start to run into pages.

Most software packages which require a reboot to finish, prompt you to do
so,or reboot automatically. If they don't, its good practice to do so
anyway.

For the novice user, who is aprehensive about deleting files manually, disk
cleanup is about the only safe option, whatever its shortcommings.

Why not report any issues you have with it to microsoft with some
enhancement suggestions?

Respectfully

Paul Hodges

 

[Jim Eshelman]

I think you're being a little pedantic, if not downright picky

Deleting temporary files, halfway through an install is rather a
special case, and if we're going start accounting for special cases,
answers are going to start to run into pages.

As far as I've been able to tell, this is the *only* special case. If there
are more, then we should start a list

For the novice user, who is aprehensive about deleting files
manually, disk cleanup is about the only safe option, whatever its
shortcommings.

Why not report any issues you have with it to microsoft with some
enhancement suggestions?

Because I don't think Disk Cleanup is worth a hill of beans other than for
them ost simplistic things, and I have a lot more luck teaching people to go
in and manually delete things. There is no need to be apprehensive if one
has clear instructions. Manual cleaning just does a much better job. Even
clearing the TIF through Internet Explorer's "Internet Options" panel can
hang the computer when the TIF is let get too full, so I got out of the
habit of using even that unless I'm the only who has been using the
computer. With a user base of about 6-7,000 at work, about one time in three
of walking someone through a system cleanup over the phone I save about 10
minutes (half of that is for the reboot after the computer locks up beyond
recovery) by having them just go straight to Temp and TIF and empty them
manually.

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows
http://aumha.org/
http://WinSupportCenter.com/

Did you find this newsgroup on the web? A newsreader like Outlook Express
will make your online life a lot easier. Get better help!
See: http://aumha.org/win4/supp1b.htm and
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/howto/default.asp

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Where do the readers of the newsgroup get these "clear instructions" ?

 

[Jim Eshelman]

Where do the readers of the newsgroup get these "clear instructions" ?

Well, for this purpose, I always send them to step 4, "Taking Out the
Trash," here:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/health.htm

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows
http://aumha.org/
http://WinSupportCenter.com/

Did you find this newsgroup on the web? A newsreader like Outlook Express
will make your online life a lot easier. Get better help!
See: http://aumha.org/win4/supp1b.htm and
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/howto/default.asp