temporary files

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Guest

control panel>performance and maintenance > free up disk space.
There is a box in front of temporary files with an explanation below. Are
these the same files you find in the folder if you run %temp%? I don't know
if I should delete these files in either case. I was told to empty %temp% and
it seems to warn you if you try to remove a file that should not be removed.
I also don't know if I should leave the box in 'performance and maintenance'
checked or not.
Thank you for helping a pc run right.
 
Grampy said:
control panel>performance and maintenance > free up disk space.
There is a box in front of temporary files with an explanation below.
Are these the same files you find in the folder if you run %temp%?
Click to expand...

The easy answer is yes and it's 99% accurate said:
don't know if I should delete these files in either case.
Click to expand...

Go ahead and delete them; they are not needed.

I was told
to empty %temp% and it seems to warn you if you try to remove a file
that should not be removed.
Click to expand...

It would do that if the file were in use. The system won't let you remove a
file while it's being used.

I also don't know if I should leave the
box in 'performance and maintenance' checked or not.
Thank you for helping a pc run right.
Click to expand...

I don't know what that means; sorry.


In general anything in a folder called "temp" or "tmp" can be deleted.

%temp% is the temp folder in YOUR local account that you signe in on. Each
account has one, including the All Users account, guest, etc.. They can all
be cleaned of temp files.

Also any file of the format *.tmp or ~name.* can be deleted if they're found
in other places. Some programs use their own folder setup for their temp
files. They get left behind because of program crashes, etc..

Any temp files that might be in use cannot be deleted; you'll get an error
message. But it's usually only one or two files, so no big deal.
The best time to delete temp files is right after a reboot or fresh
start. None of them should be in use that way. Safe mode is another
possible way to get temp files to delete if some are troublesome.
Any system crash or program crash might result in a LOT of leftover temp
files so keep that in mind if you're concerned with their numbers. As a
general rule, temp files wont' cause any problems, but it's good to keep
them cleaned up periodically.

HTH

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