Temp File Purging

[Lagomorph Mom]

I researched all the threads of this forum incl. suggested links regarding
the removal of temporary files to regain some hard disk space. Though I did
not use the MS disk cleanup utility, I did manually remove all of the temp
files over one week old in all of the temp folders and they are now in my
recycle bin. I reboot my laptop and launched every program I use without
incident; everything performs as expected.

My question: How long should I wait before emptying my recycle bin? There
are .exe, .dat, .dll and .cat files in this purge. I'm a novice at these
things and would welcome some "seasoned" advice.

Thank you, MB

Windows XP SP 3

 

[Alec S.]

Lagomorph Mom wrote (in

My question: How long should I wait before emptying my recycle bin? There
are .exe, .dat, .dll and .cat files in this purge. I'm a novice at these
things and would welcome some "seasoned" advice.

Thank you, MB

Windows XP SP 3

Well obviously it depends on what the files are, not just their types. If you
are going to end up having to restore them, then you don’t want to purge them
(of course you don’t want to delete them in the first place).

Your best bet is to just Google the filenames or folder from which you deleted
them. You should be able to find information on what the files you deleted are
and decide if it is safe to get rid of them or not.

Try searching for “free up space delete files” or “safe files to delete” or
something to that effect. I have seen several decent pages that list files that
you can delete to free up space, some including different sets (completely safe,
safe if not using, Windows will still run but…, etc.)


HTH

 

[Jerry]

All the files ending in .TMP can be immediately deleted.

 

[Alec S.]

All the files ending in .TMP can be immediately deleted.

Not necessarily. When installing an app, it may not be able to overwrite files
that are in use, so it will create TMP files and replace the in-use files with
the TMP files on reboot.

You can usually delete TMP files if you have not installed anything since the
last reboot. If you have, make sure to reboot if it asks you to so that the
installation can finish.