I've made a startling discovery deep within my computer's Documents And Settings folders!
This one is the Local Settings folder.
Okay, three things.
One:
I've found a second Application Data folder!
Who knew we needed two of these things to be blatantly ignored by giant big-budget developers who think their updaters (Adobe!!!) and game save files (EA!!!) deserve to mess up my My Documents folder?
Adobe, Ahead (Nero people), Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, Macromedia, ATI, and many others, in their confusion as to which one to use, seem to have opted for the easy solution: Using BOTH! I was hoping that one was a shortcut to another, but they are actually two separate folders serving the same purpose.
Local Settings/Application Data weighs in at 330 MB. The regular Application Data, for me, is about 100 MB.
Two:
You know how people never clear their cache?
Well, I don't either. I think I will today.
200 MB. I don't know which web browser created them. I suspect many of these files are from IE, since the pages mentioned here are rather specific pages that I would be viewing with IE.
What I found interesting here was the number of thumbnail images saved to my temporary files by one single query using MSN's image search engine which I decided to try out one day.
This query, of course, was done with Internet Explorer (It doesn't like Firefox).
They turn out to not be very space consuming overall (2.3 MB), but there are HUNDREDS of those thumbnails.
My Temporary Internet Files come out to 200 MB. That one I can blame on none other than myself. Still lame, though. I think I'll turn off cache...
Three:
Okay, the horrible one:
"Temp".
This is the folder where stupid programs put things that they intended to remove afterwards but forget to.
I have 600 files which have been abandoned here, consuming 130 MB of hard drive space.
A few files of interest...
Of course, the infamous MSVDM makes an appearance here. Not only does it store desktop backgrounds in the folder where TEMPORARY files go, but it's also storing (yes, storing on the hard disk) the Preview Images for my virtual desktops. I'm very glad I uninstalled that program.
I'm not done yet!
I have 7 folders, all beginning with plugtmp- and ending with a number. It looks like some program anticipated that it would be storing so many files in each plugtmp folder that it needs to actually create 7 seperate directories to store them all. There is nothing in any of them.
Firefox doesn't get away happily here. ff_temp and nstemp 1 to 3 are all in its name. In each of them is an uninstaller. Doesn't the uninstaller go in the Program directory? Isn't the uninstaller... er... not a temporary file? Besides, the uninstaller already is in the program installation directory.
Adobe is ready to use my Temp directory, too. However, they decided instead to put the garbage from their updater in the My Documents folder so there is nothing there. (Where updater temporary files should go).
History. Hm... didn't I already see History from Firefox back there? Oh, this is History from IE5. Yep, IE5. It didn't delete itself. After all these years, its "temporary" files folder is still there. Even weirder, though, is that it has a file called index.dat. Looking at this file in a text editor, it seems to contain a few file paths which can only have been created in the last month. IE5 also has a spot within Temporary Internet Files within Temp. Whatever...
This doesn't scratch the surface! Random images saved for no particular reason (perhaps by Firefox), The Sims 2 uninstaller, eauninstall.exe, hundreds of fla[something].tmp files, PDF files last viewed over a year ago, that Mario thing that sswifty posted a while ago, an ancient update file for Azureus (not being updated, or even running, at the moment).
My Local Settings folder alone weighs in at around 650 MB with 8,921 files. That's one of 4 local settings folders taking up a huge chunk of my hard drive.
Aren't settings supposed to be... um... smallish?
So...
Temporary Files should be temporary.
I have files in Temp from (honestly) 2 years ago.
Please, if you use the Temp folder, delete what you put there.
There are a few here as well that look like rather necessary settings files.
So, should I risk it?
Should I risk deleting some of these temporary files to free up hard drive space? I don't think their owners are going to.
Edit:
Turns out that the entire Temporary Internet Files folder was Internet Explorer's doing.
Considering that I hardly ever use the browser (it's maybe received 6 hours of use over the last year, generally viewing local content again and again), it is quite incredible that it could find so much to cache.
This one is the Local Settings folder.
Okay, three things.
One:
I've found a second Application Data folder!
Who knew we needed two of these things to be blatantly ignored by giant big-budget developers who think their updaters (Adobe!!!) and game save files (EA!!!) deserve to mess up my My Documents folder?
Adobe, Ahead (Nero people), Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, Macromedia, ATI, and many others, in their confusion as to which one to use, seem to have opted for the easy solution: Using BOTH! I was hoping that one was a shortcut to another, but they are actually two separate folders serving the same purpose.
Local Settings/Application Data weighs in at 330 MB. The regular Application Data, for me, is about 100 MB.
Two:
You know how people never clear their cache?
Well, I don't either. I think I will today.
200 MB. I don't know which web browser created them. I suspect many of these files are from IE, since the pages mentioned here are rather specific pages that I would be viewing with IE.
What I found interesting here was the number of thumbnail images saved to my temporary files by one single query using MSN's image search engine which I decided to try out one day.
This query, of course, was done with Internet Explorer (It doesn't like Firefox).
They turn out to not be very space consuming overall (2.3 MB), but there are HUNDREDS of those thumbnails.
My Temporary Internet Files come out to 200 MB. That one I can blame on none other than myself. Still lame, though. I think I'll turn off cache...
Three:
Okay, the horrible one:
"Temp".
This is the folder where stupid programs put things that they intended to remove afterwards but forget to.
I have 600 files which have been abandoned here, consuming 130 MB of hard drive space.
A few files of interest...
Of course, the infamous MSVDM makes an appearance here. Not only does it store desktop backgrounds in the folder where TEMPORARY files go, but it's also storing (yes, storing on the hard disk) the Preview Images for my virtual desktops. I'm very glad I uninstalled that program.
I'm not done yet!
I have 7 folders, all beginning with plugtmp- and ending with a number. It looks like some program anticipated that it would be storing so many files in each plugtmp folder that it needs to actually create 7 seperate directories to store them all. There is nothing in any of them.
Firefox doesn't get away happily here. ff_temp and nstemp 1 to 3 are all in its name. In each of them is an uninstaller. Doesn't the uninstaller go in the Program directory? Isn't the uninstaller... er... not a temporary file? Besides, the uninstaller already is in the program installation directory.
Adobe is ready to use my Temp directory, too. However, they decided instead to put the garbage from their updater in the My Documents folder so there is nothing there. (Where updater temporary files should go).
History. Hm... didn't I already see History from Firefox back there? Oh, this is History from IE5. Yep, IE5. It didn't delete itself. After all these years, its "temporary" files folder is still there. Even weirder, though, is that it has a file called index.dat. Looking at this file in a text editor, it seems to contain a few file paths which can only have been created in the last month. IE5 also has a spot within Temporary Internet Files within Temp. Whatever...
This doesn't scratch the surface! Random images saved for no particular reason (perhaps by Firefox), The Sims 2 uninstaller, eauninstall.exe, hundreds of fla[something].tmp files, PDF files last viewed over a year ago, that Mario thing that sswifty posted a while ago, an ancient update file for Azureus (not being updated, or even running, at the moment).
My Local Settings folder alone weighs in at around 650 MB with 8,921 files. That's one of 4 local settings folders taking up a huge chunk of my hard drive.
Aren't settings supposed to be... um... smallish?
So...
Temporary Files should be temporary.
I have files in Temp from (honestly) 2 years ago.
Please, if you use the Temp folder, delete what you put there.
There are a few here as well that look like rather necessary settings files.
So, should I risk it?
Should I risk deleting some of these temporary files to free up hard drive space? I don't think their owners are going to.
Edit:
Turns out that the entire Temporary Internet Files folder was Internet Explorer's doing.
Considering that I hardly ever use the browser (it's maybe received 6 hours of use over the last year, generally viewing local content again and again), it is quite incredible that it could find so much to cache.