Deleting .TMP files

G

Guest

Did search: Start>search>all files and folders> .TMP
Found 2300. What to do? Trying to clean out pc.
Did same with *.GID Found about 20 and deleted them. Not sure of .TMP
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

Tom said:
Did search: Start>search>all files and folders> .TMP
Found 2300. What to do? Trying to clean out pc.
Did same with *.GID Found about 20 and deleted them. Not sure of .TMP


Tmp stands for "temporary." They can, and should be, deleted periodically.
The temp folder provides workspace for programs. Programs can create
temporary files there for their own temporary use. Each program should
delete all its temporary files when it closes, but for various reasons it
doesn't always happen (for example, if the program crashes, it never gets to
do this). That's why it's a good idea to periodically clean out anything
left there.
Also note that there are some program installations which work in two steps.
The first step concludes by writing temporary files and rebooting. The
second step starts automatically after rebooting and needs to find those
files there (and then deletes them when it's done).

Other than doing it automatically when rebooting (that would interfere with
installations like the kind I described), it's always safe to delete the
contents of the temp folder. Because it's safe to delete any temp files that
aren't open and in use by an application, and since Windows won't let you
delete open files, it's safe to (try to) delete them at any time. If any
fail to delete because they're open, they'll either be deleted automatically
when the app using them closes, or you'll get them the next time you delete
manually
 
G

Guest

you can delete them manually or use some other programmes to delete them for
you regulary.
Thanks
 
G

Guest

Thanks all for all your help. I copied all your instructions for further use.
My next post would have been 'anyway to delete all at once, there is 2300 of
them!' guess not.
 

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