"Disk Clean-Up" temporary files

[Guest]

I have decided to clean my hard drive and have been using System
Tools\"Disk Clean-Up" to remove temporary files and also old 'Restore
points'.

In "Disk Clean-Up" it now shows temporary files as 0Kb, but when I
check the C:\Windows\Temp folder it has over 42.9Mb of files!

In addition there are four folders in the Temp folder:-

LicenseAgreement_win32 (Empty)
SaveReport (Empty)
StandardInstall_1-8-0 (Empty)
Marvell (various files)

There are also numerous files created by Realtek AC_97 which I assumed
were placed in the temporary folder when I recently installed and
updated my Realtek audio driver.

In addition there are numerous ZLT files (created by Zone Alarm), DF,
DFF and CHH files.

Some files are in use and have been created today (30-8-2006) but is
it safe to delete the other older files?

Why does Disk Clean-Up appear to ignore the C:\Windows\Temp folder?

Aitcho_1

 

[thecreator]

Hi Aitcho_1,

While Disk Cleanup works okay and removes a number of files, from where you normally don't look, when you use Explore to view your \Temp Folders, simply delete as many as of the sub-folders and files in there that aren't in use. Then empty the Recycle Bin.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Alter the "LastAccess" value for cleaning the Temporary files using Disk
Cleanup utility:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/cleantemp.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com



I have decided to clean my hard drive and have been using System
Tools\"Disk Clean-Up" to remove temporary files and also old 'Restore
points'.

In "Disk Clean-Up" it now shows temporary files as 0Kb, but when I
check the C:\Windows\Temp folder it has over 42.9Mb of files!

In addition there are four folders in the Temp folder:-

LicenseAgreement_win32 (Empty)
SaveReport (Empty)
StandardInstall_1-8-0 (Empty)
Marvell (various files)

There are also numerous files created by Realtek AC_97 which I assumed
were placed in the temporary folder when I recently installed and
updated my Realtek audio driver.

In addition there are numerous ZLT files (created by Zone Alarm), DF,
DFF and CHH files.

Some files are in use and have been created today (30-8-2006) but is
it safe to delete the other older files?

Why does Disk Clean-Up appear to ignore the C:\Windows\Temp folder?

Aitcho_1

 

[A Call]

I also have a huge number of these in t Windows/Temp and wondered if I can
just delete them, but how do I know if they are in 'use'?
thanks


Hi Aitcho_1,

While Disk Cleanup works okay and removes a number of files, from where
you normally don't look, when you use Explore to view your \Temp Folders,
simply delete as many as of the sub-folders and files in there that aren't
in use. Then empty the Recycle Bin.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

The files in %TEMP% folder can be deleted. However, it is advisable to
reboot once before clearing the TEMP folder, especially if you made a
software installation during the current logon session.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I also have a huge number of these in t Windows/Temp and wondered if I can
just delete them, but how do I know if they are in 'use'?
thanks


Hi Aitcho_1,

While Disk Cleanup works okay and removes a number of files, from where
you normally don't look, when you use Explore to view your \Temp Folders,
simply delete as many as of the sub-folders and files in there that aren't
in use. Then empty the Recycle Bin.

 

[Pop`]

I have decided to clean my hard drive and have been using System
Tools\"Disk Clean-Up" to remove temporary files and also old 'Restore
points'.

In "Disk Clean-Up" it now shows temporary files as 0Kb, but when I
check the C:\Windows\Temp folder it has over 42.9Mb of files!

In addition there are four folders in the Temp folder:-

LicenseAgreement_win32 (Empty)
SaveReport (Empty)
StandardInstall_1-8-0 (Empty)
Marvell (various files)

There are also numerous files created by Realtek AC_97 which I assumed
were placed in the temporary folder when I recently installed and
updated my Realtek audio driver.

In addition there are numerous ZLT files (created by Zone Alarm), DF,
DFF and CHH files.

Some files are in use and have been created today (30-8-2006) but is
it safe to delete the other older files?

Why does Disk Clean-Up appear to ignore the C:\Windows\Temp folder?

Aitcho_1

Disk Cleanup doesn't clean "everything" because, I think, it's aimed at
folders where there won't be any files in use.

If a file is "in use" you cannot delete it; you'll just get an error
message. That's why a reboot before deleting them is a good idea; it
minimizes the in use files. In use files will have a date/time stamp listed
that includes the current boot session but not all of those will be in use.
So you don't have to worry about deleting a file that's in use; the system
won't let you.

Any file in a tmp or temp or temporaray * folder can be deleted. Do not
delete the tmp or temp folders; you need those. I don't know if hte system
keepsyou from deleting those or not.

Once a temporary file is not in use, it'll never be used again and so can be
deleted.

HTH
Pop`

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the URL link Ramesh, I checked my registry setting and it
is set to 7-days which seems a reasonable period of time, although I
have files dated May of this year in the Temporary folder.

Also many thanks to everyone who responded to my original posting, I
have followed the advice given and deleted the majority of files, my
Temp folder is now 65.4KB in size instead of a rather large 42.9MB.

Cheers - Aitcho_1

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You're very welcome.

Check the "last accessed" date, Aitcho_1. It's different from the creation
date.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks for the URL link Ramesh, I checked my registry setting and it
is set to 7-days which seems a reasonable period of time, although I
have files dated May of this year in the Temporary folder.

Also many thanks to everyone who responded to my original posting, I
have followed the advice given and deleted the majority of files, my
Temp folder is now 65.4KB in size instead of a rather large 42.9MB.

Cheers - Aitcho_1

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I also have a huge number of these in t Windows/Temp and wondered if
I can just delete them, but how do I know if they are in 'use'?
thanks

You don't need to worry about whether they are in use. If they are in use,
Windows won't let you delete them.

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.