.PNF file question

B

Bill W

I started an installation of a new printer on one of my home networked
printers and discovered that I did not have to load the software on the
non-host computer. I canceled the install and the install program ended. A
search shows that I now have 688 .PNF files with a file type description of
"precompiled setup information" in a folder called Windows\INF. They total
about 38mb, so they're not taking up a lot of room. I would prefer not to
have these non-viable files sitting on my hard drive. Is there anyway to
remove them?

Thanks
 
W

Wesley Vogel

Do NOT delete any *.inf files. They will NOT be recreated.

<quote>
INF File
A text-based file containing information required by the system to install a
device's software components.
<quote>
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms789550.aspx

<quote>
PNF file
A precompiled INF File. Windows creates a PNF file for each INF file to
facilitate efficient processing. A PNF file includes information about the
content of the original INF file, as well as the name of the INF file and
other file attributes. Setup uses the PNF file instead of the original INF
file. If a PNF file does not exist, Setup generates one for the INF file.
For vendor-supplied INF files, the information contained in a PNF file also
includes the location of the original INF file.
<quote>
from...
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms789541.aspx

<quote>
It is perfectly safe to delete PNF files (in fact you will free up a huge
chunk of space on the drive) because as I said, they will be recreated
automatically when needed; you'll notice that ALL of the PNF files have
dates later than the INF files, in fact they will probably be tagged with
the date that Windows was installed-or later. The reason I said to delete
them is because your system may very well be installing
old/stale/out-of-date drivers which is causing your problem. If you delete
the driver cache (the PNF files) and then install the drives, you will force
the system to recreate the cache and read all the INF files from scratch.
When it does so, it will find and use the new drivers instead of falling
back on the old cached one. That's why I recommended it.
Alec S.
<quote>
from...
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...&q="delete+.pnf+files"&hl=en#9c48484c0b1da71a

<quote>
PNF files are temporary files created by Windows during the execution of an
..INF file. You do not need to keep PNF files, they will be generated again
when needed.
Don Watkins (Admin)
<quote>
from...
http://www.pcnet-online.com/discus/messages/449/4214.html?1082999399

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
W

Wesley Vogel

It *is* on my machine. :)

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
W

Wesley Vogel

My Commodore 64s do not even have hard drives. Only 3½ & 5¼ floppy drives.
And the 3½ drives were a big deal.

I am not as old as Rock, so I never had a cassette. gd&rvvf

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
W

Wesley Vogel

Why, when I was a kid we didn't even have numbers. And we were glad too!
More time for recess. LOL

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
R

Rock

My Commodore 64s do not even have hard drives. Only 3½ & 5¼ floppy
drives.
And the 3½ drives were a big deal.

I am not as old as Rock, so I never had a cassette. gd&rvvf

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
Click to expand...


ROFL....you got me there. You'll get yours 'Enri 'Iggins.
 
R

Rock

Yes, our first computer went to tape. About a year after we got it, you
could get a bus expansion box and attach an optional 5 1/4 floppy. But
the first PC hard drives were 5 MB Seagates, see June at link below.

http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/comp1980.htm
Click to expand...

I don't remember 5MB drives. The first ones I saw in IBM PC-XT were 10, or
at least that's what I remember. I also used an Apple II PC in that era
which ran on a version of DOS. We used it with a digital tablet and stylus
to take measurements off spectra (line height, basically), and churn out
some numbers. We also had some HP made computers that used cassette tapes
for storage. There were integrated with some very sophisticated HP
instrumentation though I believe you could buy the computer separately. I
think the OS was based on Pascal, but maybe that was a later version of
those computers, the earlier ones were a proprietary HP language. This was
around 1981-1982 or so.

Thanks for the link. LOL..found a reference to the Corvus Concept
introduced in 1982. They had this at another place I worked in 1984. Soon
went the way of the dinosaur, and we gave our Concept to a University. I
think we were migrating onto a 3Com based server system around that time
(memory as to when is hazy on this). Then in 2000 I was at a computer
forensics class, and they were looking for a Corvus Concept because they had
some data they were trying to recovery that had been written on a Concept.
Talk about a small world. I checked but the folks we gave the Concept to
back in 1984 were not even around, let alone anyone knowing what happened to
it. And to tie it all together I independently knew a guy who wrote some of
the tech documentation for Corvus for this computer. Memories.
 

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