Need to know what "Temporary Files" are

[Guest]

An error message about low memory prompted me to investigate what is taking
up so much space. I went to Disk Cleanup and discovered that by deleting
"Temporary files" I will gain over 7 GB of space (25% of my hard drive).

Description given:

"Programs sometimes store temporary information in a TEMP folder. Before a
program closes, it usually deletes this information. You can safely delete
temporary files that have not been modified in over a week."

Main Question: By allowing Disk Cleanup to delete these, will it ONLY
delete files that are safe to delete, judged by its own definition?

Follow-up Questions: Does anyone know what this temporary information is
that programs seem to create? ...what its purpose is? ...and why the
programs aren't deleting the files on their own?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Memory and disk space are two separate things.

Memory refers to RAM; disk space refers to your hard disk.

For help with error messages, please post the complete text of the message.

 

[Guest]

Memory and disk space are two separate things.

I understand the difference between memory and RAM. The error message does
not. But thanks for taking the time to point that out, now all my problems
are solved..................

 

[Shenan Stanley]

An error message about low memory prompted me to investigate what
is taking up so much space. I went to Disk Cleanup and discovered
that by deleting "Temporary files" I will gain over 7 GB of space
(25% of my hard drive).

Description given:

"Programs sometimes store temporary information in a TEMP folder.
Before a program closes, it usually deletes this information. You
can safely delete temporary files that have not been modified in
over a week."

Main Question: By allowing Disk Cleanup to delete these, will it
ONLY delete files that are safe to delete, judged by its own
definition?
Yes.

Follow-up Questions: Does anyone know what this temporary
information is that programs seem to create? ...what its purpose
is? ...and why the programs aren't deleting the files on their own?

Depends on the 'program' in question. Cookies are temporary. Cached
graphics from web pages are temporary. But that only explains Internet
Explorer (and most browsers for that matter.) Other applications might have
other uses for temporary files.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

NP.

 

[Daave]

I understand the difference between memory and RAM.

What difference? RAM stands for Random Access Memory.

 

[Guest]

What difference? RAM stands for Random Access Memory.

Typo. I meant the hard drive and RAM.

 

[Guest]

also...

For help with error messages, please post the complete text of the message.

That wasn't even what I was asking for help on. Please read entire message
and try again.

 

[Jim]

I understand the difference between memory and RAM. The error message
does
not. But thanks for taking the time to point that out, now all my
problems
are solved..................

The message "low virtual memory" means that your pagefile is too small. I
for one have never seen a message that leaves out the word "virtual", thus I
naturally assume that you forgot to include it.

If you let the system manage the pagefile size, then in fact XP may not be
able to increase the size because there is insufficient free space on the
disk. And, if doing what you did eliminates the message, this is the most
likely explanation for why cleaning your disk made a difference.

Jim

 

[David Starr]

An error message about low memory prompted me to investigate what is taking
up so much space. I went to Disk Cleanup and discovered that by deleting
"Temporary files" I will gain over 7 GB of space (25% of my hard drive).

Description given:

"Programs sometimes store temporary information in a TEMP folder. Before a
program closes, it usually deletes this information. You can safely delete
temporary files that have not been modified in over a week."

Main Question: By allowing Disk Cleanup to delete these, will it ONLY
delete files that are safe to delete, judged by its own definition?

Follow-up Questions: Does anyone know what this temporary information is
that programs seem to create? ...what its purpose is? ...and why the
programs aren't deleting the files on their own?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

As a general rule, Microsoft utilities are pretty safe to use. Microsoft
worries about naive users shooting themselves in the foot and then
calling Tech Support. They spend a lot of time making everything as
idiot proof as they can.
I've used MS disk cleanup on a fair number of machines over the
years, and with one exception, it works fine. It zaps anything it sees,
right away. It will delete everything in folders named tmp or temp, and
a lot of (not all of) files with extensions of .tmp where ever they
live. It does not check date stamps and let fresh young temp files
survive the purge, it whacks 'em all. The only temp files that live
thru a disk clean run are the ones currently open (in use) by active
programs, those are spared 'cause Windows marks 'em "in use" and defends
them against delete by anything.
One Gotcha. If perchance you are running IBM's Rational Clear Case
(an expensive programmers source code control tool used by some
companies) disk cleanup is trouble. Clearcase stupidly uses the
extension .tmp for important permanent files on your hard drive. This
"feature" is one of many good reasons for not using Rational Clearcase.
Assuming you are not running Clearcase (a good bet unless you are a
professional programmer concerned about a work machine) just run disk
cleanup and don't worry about sparing the young temp files. The advice
about letting a week go by before zapping a temp file is a good cautious
policy, but in my experience you won't get into trouble using Disk
Cleanup to blow 'em all away instantly.

David Starr

 

[Guest]

The message "low virtual memory" means that your pagefile is too small. I
for one have never seen a message that leaves out the word "virtual", thus I
naturally assume that you forgot to include it.

Yeah it did refer to virtual memory. To paraphrase, the message said
something about virtual memory being low and to try to increase disk space,
hence my search for whatever was all of a sudden taking up space. I just
didn't include the error message since my question was mainly about this
"temporary files" thing.

I didn't understand why it referred to memory and disk space like it did,
but it makes more sense now. Thanks for the input.