Large number of files in Messenger and Windows Live

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G

Guest

Hi,

I have 4 people in our house who use MSN and Windows Live. These programs
have accumulated a huge number of files in Documents and Settings which
severely slow down my spyware and virus scans. There are over 50,000 files
in there.

Is there any way I can manage these files to reduce their number, either
through Windows Live or MSN, or are there any guidelines for simply deleting
old and obsolete ones?

Thanks

Jan
 
Hello,

which type of files are there? Are that normal files that were sent between
chat partners, or the Messenger contact history files?
If you don't want to keep your message history, go to menu Tools ->
Options -> Messages -> Message history.
The folder where the transferred files are stored can be changed in Tools ->
Options -> File Transfer.
Of course, you can delete old/obsolete files you don't want to keep.

Hope this helps.
Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo
 
Thanks for your replies.

They are neither received files or history files.

When I do a spyware scan they spin by really quickly but they seem to end in
..windowslivecontact
I have found about 3,000 of these files in documents and settings but the
scanner shows about 50,000. I can't find the rest.

Jan
 
Hi,

I found a bunch of these files.
They are under username\local settings\application data\microsoft\windows
live contacts\shadow\ignored
This is a hidden directory. It seems to create a file for every time a
contact logs on and we ignore it.
It contains about 25,000 files per user, and we have 3 heavy users and one
light user in this house, so you can see how we got so many extra files.
It just slows down my anti virus and spyware scans so I am deleting them.
I hope to find a way to stop Windows Live from storing this info. It is
just a useless waste of hard drive if you ask me.

Jan
 
Hello,

I've got about 70 files there. What version of Windows Live Messenger are
you using? WLM 8.1 shouldn't produce such a waste.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo
 
To expand on my previous answer, we only recently upgraded, and all these
extra files date from previous versions.

Jan
 
Hello,
so new ones are created, but in normal amount?
Try deleting as many of the annoying files as you can.
(If possible, you can restrict access to the folder by right-clicking it ->
Properties -> Security -> Delete all users from the list, even System, and
see if it works. I haven't tried this yet.)

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo
 
So I deleted all of the files in the "ignore" folders plus the folders
themselves for all 4 users, which took hours, and so far WLM hasn't built new
folders for any of us. I will give it a few weeks to see if everything is
stable, and then delete them from the recycle bin.

WLM seems to be working normally.

Thanks for your help.

Jan de Groot
 
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