Internet temp files

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My system has 44,000 temporary Internet files, according to the folder properties, even after I have deleted all such files in Internet options. They are not cookies (I have only 339 of them) and it is slowing my system down. I can’t see any of them individually in Windows Explorer – so where are they and how to I get rid of the litter? I could use deltree to nuke the whole lot, but that is a little drastic! Anyone know of a better solution? This system is running IE5.01 SP1, having been upgraded from IE4 (is that the problem?)
I would appreciate any ideas.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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What operating system are you running? If W2K (and maybe others), try:
Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disc Cleanup

What size do you have set for temp files? and what happens if you set the size to minimum (albeit temporarily) ?
Why do you believe it is slowing your system down?

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W98 1st edition.
I’ve tried the W98 equivalent of disc cleanup (in this case, via Internet Options) and cleared all temporary internet files.
I also cut the size for internet temp files from 251MB to 1MB and returned it to 251MB.
Despite all this, the system runs far more slowly than it used to a while ago. One of the reasons is there are quite a lot of applications on it (thanks in part to teenage sons), but if I look at the Internet temporary files in Windows Exporer, it takes quite a while to open the folder and, as I mentioned, the folder properties says that there are 44000 files and change in it – hence my suspicion that this is another cause of slow running. Also Settings takes quite a while to come up – the Torch searches for a bit.
Hope this helps.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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44,000 files will take a while to list in Explorer – I’m not surprised the torch comes up!
I’m wondering if IE5 is using a different folder, and these are all ‘old’ temp files. Does the location of the temp files in IE match the location you are seeing in Explorer? Do the dates of the files you see in Explorer seem recent?
Have you done a recent de-frag?

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As far as I can see, there are no differences in file locations between IE5 and Explorer. If I view files under IE5, I see the same files as I see in Explorer, but these are not the offending files – I only see the cookies and the few files created since I did the clean-out yesterday. It is just under the Folder Properties function that I see evidence of the large number of files (not the files themselves), and the time taken to access the folder first time (or the properties) tells me that it is not lieing.
The Internet temp folder contains one subfolder (Content.IE5) which has 28 subfolders with gobbledygook names. It does not matter which folder I look at, I see the same roughly 200-300 files.
The last defrag that I did was 5 months ago, but that did not cure the problem then, so I do not think it would help now. (With 2,000,000 cluster, it is not a short task).
I also think that the files are old ones (??IE4??) but cannot for the life of me find them.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Can you delete them (the folder) from Explorer so they end up in the Recycle bin just in case you do need them?
Personally, I’d be tempted to get rid of them. As far as I know, worst case is you would need to download them again and/or renew some cookies.

As far as defragging goes, I would suggest that the longer defrag takes, the more it needs it. On all our systems here – NT4 and W2K – Diskeeper defrag is scheduled to run every[/i] night ! – if defragging is not required, no harm done.
5 months seems an awfully long time . . .

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Thanks – I will try the delete tomorrow (weather too nice today – presumably the same in Bucks)
I feel suitably chastened about my defrag habits…. my only defense is that I have to kill everything running in the background under W98…

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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I agree, Lief. I’ve got my laptop scheduled to run Diskeeper every night on both partitions. I know there are those who argue that it doesn’t do anything for performance, but my experience says it does!

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What a difference one small and obscure checkbox makes. This time, I tackled the Delete Files task through Internet Options/General/Delete files, and there I found a box (unchecked by default) saying “Delete offline content”. This option does not seem to exist in Disk Cleanup in Exporer. When I selected it, the remaining 44000 files were deleted and the directory structure in Content.IE5 was removed (although of course it started to build again when I went on line). My system has started to perform better.

Why IE should keep all these Offline Content files separate and invisible, what they are and why they should be so difficult to delete is a mystery to me. It is not specific to that upgraded setup either – I found the same syndrome on my main production machine running W98SE and IE5.5, but since that is a faster machine, it had not become a problem.
Many thanks Lief and Charlotte for your help.

Chris

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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To clean out the TIF completely and to reorganize your /Cookies/index.dat file, add these two lines to your autoexec.bat file:

deltree /y C:WindowsTempor~1
deltree /y C:WindowsCookiesindex.dat

This way, on each reboot you will have a cleared out TIF that only contains the appropriate cookies pointers to Cookies in your /Cookie folder. Both index.dat files will also correctly index these.

Empty out all the unneeded cookies first.

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