Temp Files

Question

Re C:\Windows|Temp
I have Windows 98SE
Dimension L667r

Denny Denham, Dan Manley or Moderator, please answer.

What is the best way to delete temp files that have piled up in the Temp folder. Which ones should I delete and what should I keep (types) also time length to keep 1 day, 1 week?.

Disk cleanup shows 0 temp files and there are still files in the above path.

One post suggested a shortcut using clean bat. I have cleanALL.bat on my system. Can I use this? and type in the Delltree command. If so please give the command. I would prefer not to do in this manner since I am not comfortable with DOS.

Also, it was suggested to me how to search for temp file posts, however, this was rather annoying because after reading a post, I could not get back to the list without searching for it again. Please comment.

Majestic · Answer

With Windows 98SE you can safely delete everything in the TEMP folder as there is nothing in the folder worth keeping.  Until I wrote my own batch file I use to use Windows Explorer to open the folder and then select everything for deletion.  By using Windows Explorer it will also allow you to review the files in case you are not comfortable with deleting everything.

Dan Manley · Answer

In the C:\Windows\Temp directory choose, 'Edit | Select All | Delete'.  If any .tmp files are in use (such as the Zone Alarm entry if you use it) they will be excluded from deletion.

Sallie · Answer

@Dan Manley wrote:
In the C:\Windows\Temp directory choose, "Edit | Select All | Delete". If any .tmp files are in use (such as the Zone Alarm entry if you use it) they will be excluded from deletion.

If I get a message contains 4 hidden files, should these be deleted also?

These messages always confuse me. Sometimes when I am archiving for example My Documents, I get this type of message - do I archive those also.?

Dan Manley · Answer

You should probably ignore the hidden files.  If their presence is a bother to you they can be examined by just selecting the, 'Show All File' option in your Folder Options.  Most likely, these are just indicators of your saved viewing options for the particular folder, etc.

Sallie · Answer

After reading your e-mail, I was planning on deleting the temp files in C:\Windows\temp. At this point if went to Disk Cleanup it told me there was 0.00 MB in Temp Files but there was a whole slew of them in C:\Windows\temp including 4 hidden ones. I decided to have a look at them and they were Application Extensions I thought I might follow someone else's instructions and keep copies of the files in the recycle bin before deleting anything. Somehow I got a bunch of WRS's on my desktop and my C:\Windows folder had many folders that looked like they had been cut. (a lighter color). Seems I could not get the hidden files out of the temp folder so I clicked on properties of each one and put a check mark in hidden. This did not seem to help either so I went back into view folder options and found out that I must not have clicked apply after changing back to Do not show hidden and system files.

At any rate at this point I am back where I started from. My Temp folder looks OK and the files are still there.

Dell tech's keep telling me not to delete temp files and Delltalk has many posts saying it is OK.

I once ran CleanAll.bat to get rid of Cookies and I believe it got rid of the temp files also so it does seem OK to me to get rid of the files one way or the other. Why do Dell tech's advise against this?

Dan Manley · Answer

'Why do Dell tech's advise against this?' I have no idea.  I really wouldn't consider this to be a 'support' issue and can only surmise that the techs prefer to err on the side of caution assuming, that if the computer is running OK prudence prevents advising anyone to change anything lest they be accused of causing a problem.

Windows General

Temp Files

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