Temporary Internet Files

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe McGuire
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Joe McGuire

I don't know if this is the right place for this question; if not I would
appreciate a referral to a more appropriate BB. My XP machine is running a
little slow and I got a message about virtual memory or something to that
effect. Then I remembered that I had not cleaned oukt Temporary Internet
Files for a long time. Found a million files in there. well, actually well
over 100mb of what was almost certainly junk. Had some trouble deleting
it--If I did so in IE (Tools, Internet Options, General, Delete Files), IE
simply crashed. Well I got the entire collection of files deleted--and
since I was mad I deleted everything! That's the background, wierd as it
may sound. Now the question:

I then did some web browsing. At the end of that session I tried to delete
whatever was in Temporary Internet Files through IE but it crashed. Then I
looked at the Temporary Internet Files folder in Win Explorer. Somehow, in
the course of maybe an hour I had accumulated 88+mb and 2,400+ files!
That's what I found when I right-clicked on the folder and checked
Properties. However, on the right side f the margin in Win Ex there were
onlyk 7 files, cookies actually, of 1 kb each. This does not add up at all.
Then I deleted the 7 files but I still show the same amount of stuff in
Properties. What the heck is happening? Should IE crash while deleting
these files?

Joe McGuire
 
It wasn't designed for caches as big as yours. Set yours to 20 to 40 MB (and it will use the cache then - it's not using it now - it's full). When empting tick the box Offline Content. Other programs dump files there like OE.
 
Nasty little buggers, those temp internet files. You can reduce the size of
the cache (as mentioned by David) and that'll help quite a bit. Also, I
rarely use the 'delete files' button on the Internet Tools General tab. I
like to go directly to the folder and delete them. If you are having trouble
deleting them all at once, just delete chunks at the time. Also, when you
are deleting things you won't ever really need again, like temp internet
files, don't just hit 'delete', but hold down 'shift' and press 'delete'.
The shift+delete combo permanently deletes things. This can save several
minutes of sitting there waiting for the items to be copied to the recycled
bin, because when you shift+delete, there's no copying... just
perm-deletions! Hope it helps.
 
I usually do that. I will reset the size as you suggested. Any idea why
"Properties" reports 88+ MB of stuff when only a few KB of files actuallyk
show up in Win Explorer? (I have set Windows to show hidden files and
extensions, too)


"David Candy" <.> wrote in message
It wasn't designed for caches as big as yours. Set yours to 20 to 40 MB (and
it will use the cache then - it's not using it now - it's full). When
empting tick the box Offline Content. Other programs dump files there like
OE.
 
Smoke and mirrors.

You do not have to *see* the Content.IE5 folder to delete its contents.

To delete *all* Temporary Internet Files...

1) Start | Run | Type: inetcpl.cpl | OK
Or right click the Internet Explorer icon on your Desktop.
Or: Start | Settings | Control Panel | Internet Options.
Best to do this with all instances of Internet Explorer closed. Especially
if there are a large number of files.
2) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen, click on Delete Files
3) Check the box Delete all offline content {This cleans >>
%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
AND
%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
and \Content.MSO (Created by an MS Office program)}
4) Click on OK and wait for the hourglass icon to stop after it deletes the
temporary internet files
5) You can now click on Delete Cookies and click OK to delete cookies that
websites have placed on your hard drive.
-----

If you want, try this: Open IE | Tools | Internet Options | Advanced tab |
scroll down to the bottom | check: Empty Temporary Internet Files folder
when browser is closed | click Apply | OK. Entirely up to you, but if you
want to be rid of this, it is done automatically. Deletes the content of
%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files but not the Content.IE5 or Content.MSO folders.
-----

Paste this in Start | Run and click OK.

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5


--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
Having wasted more time on this than I ever shokuld have spent, I now
realize that this is essentiallyk not solvable. MS Article 301057 notes
that there can be a huge qualntity of stuff int eh Temporary Internet FOlder
that doeds not actuallyk show up in Win Explorer. However, the workaround
in the paper seems to be pretty much a waste of time. I think I was finally
able to get rid of the Temporary Internet Folder byk moving it in IE to a
detachable hard driv e and then disconnecting it. Presumablky Windows
created a new Temporaryk Internet Folder. I have not done a second's
browsing since then but the new folder already has 9.46mb in it, and
ostensibly 966 files. Only a few dozen, however, actually show up iin Win
Exp. That same paper also explains what to do if the amount of stuff kept
in that file exceeds the setting in IE (I reduced the setting to 5mb to see
what woukld happen, but it seems to have no effect.

One more Microsoft mystery.
 
Explorer is not a file manager. It is a namespace browser. Each folder starts a special program. For user generated folders it loads a file browsing program. For TIF it loads a TIF program that shows what VALID files are in the TIF, for schedule tasks it loads a task scheduler program, control panel isn't a file folder at all but a Control Panel program.

Cookies aren't stored in TIF at all, yest they show in the TIF viewer (they come from the cookies folder).

Tick the box Offline Content to delete the non valid files.
 
Joe McGuire said:
Having wasted more time on this than I ever shokuld have spent, I now
realize that this is essentiallyk not solvable. MS Article 301057 notes
that there can be a huge qualntity of stuff int eh Temporary Internet
FOlder that doeds not actuallyk show up in Win Explorer. However, the
workaround in the paper seems to be pretty much a waste of time. I think
I was finally able to get rid of the Temporary Internet Folder byk moving
it in IE to a detachable hard driv e and then disconnecting it.
Presumablky Windows created a new Temporaryk Internet Folder. I have not
done a second's browsing since then but the new folder already has 9.46mb
in it, and ostensibly 966 files. Only a few dozen, however, actually show
up iin Win Exp. That same paper also explains what to do if the amount of
stuff kept in that file exceeds the setting in IE (I reduced the setting
to 5mb to see what woukld happen, but it seems to have no effect.
Click to expand...

If you want to actually see all of the files in the Temporary Internet Files
folder (which you don't have to do to delete them as David Candy had pointed
out) you can do this by booting to Safe Mode and going into your default
Administrator account, enabling "show hidden files and folders" in Folder
Options and navigating to the TIF for whatever user account you want to do
this for.
Also, if you want, you can simply delete the TIF (the folder itself - not
just the contents)
while in Safe Mode using the default Administrator account. When you reboot
Windows
will automatically create a new TIF and it will be completely empty with a
fresh,
new index.dat file (32kb). I do this about once a month. If you do this, be
sure you delete
the TIF for the appropiate user account and reboot right away.
I was surprised that the KB article you cited didn't mention this more
straight forward
approach - maybe there's a reason for it.
 
Paste this in Start | Run and click OK.

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5

You do not need to be in Safe Mode.

You do not need Show hidden files and folders selected.

You do not need Display the contents of system folders selected.

However, you won't see any desktop.ini file.

MS doesn't think that you should delete...

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat

I, however have no problem deleting it. I believe that this is left over
from having slow internet connections. Having cable, I don't care.

[[Index.dat is the Internet Explorer cache index file. It facilitates the
browser cache mechanism that speeds access to frequently accessed web pages
across different browser processes in the same user context.]]
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];301057

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
Wesley Vogel said:
Paste this in Start | Run and click OK.

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
Click to expand...

Thank you Wes - that's much simpler and a big help - appreciate it.
 
I usually do that. I will reset the size as you suggested. Any idea why
"Properties" reports 88+ MB of stuff when only a few KB of files actuallyk
show up in Win Explorer? (I have set Windows to show hidden files and
extensions, too)
Click to expand...

I don't do much 'offline" browsing of cached files, so I've adopted the
"empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is closed" setting. The
setting in Internet Options> Advanced page: towards the bottom in the
Security section.
 
Joe McGuire said:
I don't know if this is the right place for this question; if not I would
appreciate a referral to a more appropriate BB. My XP machine is running a
little slow and I got a message about virtual memory or something to that
effect. Then I remembered that I had not cleaned oukt Temporary Internet
Files for a long time. Found a million files in there. well, actually
well over 100mb of what was almost certainly junk. Had some trouble
deleting it--If I did so in IE (Tools, Internet Options, General, Delete
Files), IE simply crashed. Well I got the entire collection of files
deleted--and since I was mad I deleted everything! That's the background,
wierd as it may sound. Now the question:

I then did some web browsing. At the end of that session I tried to
delete whatever was in Temporary Internet Files through IE but it crashed.
Then I looked at the Temporary Internet Files folder in Win Explorer.
Somehow, in the course of maybe an hour I had accumulated 88+mb and 2,400+
files! That's what I found when I right-clicked on the folder and checked
Properties. However, on the right side f the margin in Win Ex there were
onlyk 7 files, cookies actually, of 1 kb each. This does not add up at
all. Then I deleted the 7 files but I still show the same amount of stuff
in Properties. What the heck is happening? Should IE crash while
deleting these files?

Joe McGuire
Click to expand...

Similar problem was solved by using the Disk Cleanup utility. Even though
this reported no TIF's present, clicking View Files opened the TIF
folder,with the 'invisible' files visible. Selecting the files and then
Deleting transferred them to the Recycle Bin.Problem solved!


Envo
 
Disk Cleanup...
Start | Run | Type: cleanmgr | OK | Highlight Temporary Internet Files |
View Files button

Note: Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) will *not* clean:
%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5

I don't know why you can view the Content.IE5 folder with Disk Cleanup but
it won't clean the folder.

Clear the Temporary Internet Files using the Windows XP Disk Cleanup utility
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/clearxptif.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
You can also...

Start | Run | Type: %tmp% | OK |

You will probably have to click the Folders button on the Tool Bar.
Click: [+] Temporary Internet Files
Click: [+] Content.IE5
Click: Random named folders

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
I have a Temp IE Files question that may have been answered already here ,
but I don't think so.

In Win95 and Win98SE, I used to copy/paste files out of my
C:\Windows>Temporary Internet Files>Content IE5 folder when I wanted to save
certain files, like SWF files and embedded JPG's that couldn't be copied
using the right-click>Save Picture As method.

I just bought a Dell with Win-XP and thought I would copy a humorous Flash
cartoon from Albinoblacksheep.com , but when I opened up my Content IE6 ,
there were no files in any of the 4 subfolders there except the HTML pages.
I even checked the properties of the main Temp Int. Files folder, and it said
only 86kb . The SWF file was 598kb in size. I even did a file search for a
file of 598kb and a search for the Flash files name, but turned up no
results.

I guess what I'm asking is : Where does Win-XP store the graphics files when
you're using I-E 6 to surf the web. Even when I had the Win95 and there were
hidden graphic files stored in the Content IE5 folder, usually I could use my
search or my IrfanView program to browse the Content IE5 folder and see the
files.

I really don't want to, but will I have to remove the IE6 and reinstall IE5
on the new machine to accomplish this? I would hate to have to . Thanks ahead
of time !
 
Sometimes here...

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

As opposed to here...

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5

You have to make sure you open

%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

before you close IE if you have Empty Temporary Internet Files folder
when browser is closed selected, IE | Tools | Internet Options | Advanced
tab

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
Thanks Wesley !! That did the trick.

I had to uncheck the "Hidden" properties of that Temp Internet Files folder
in my Local Settings folder to see it to access it. I made a shortcut on the
Desktop to pull it up faster.

I copied the embedded Flash and Quicktime files, dragged them into their
appropriate players, and they played just fine !!

Kudo's to you for your help on this . If they allowed smileys here, I
would post the one I have that has the smiley waving his arms like saying
"We're not worthy....." ! ^__^

-BigWayne-
***********************************************
 
BigWayne,

I did fail to mention that Local Settings is a Hidden folder. Sorry about
that.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
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