IF00367
Deleting Temp Files In Windows.
These
instructions are for deleting the temporary files created when certain programs
are run or installed. (Windows is SUPPOSED to do this automatically but it
often misses LOTS and these files, if left behind, can cause lots of problems
with your computer.) These instructions will NOT delete temporary Internet
files.
This works
on ALL versions of Windows, though the "Find" feature in
Windows XP is called "Search", but the
basic process is the same.
First,
close ALL open programs.
Click on
your start button, then go to find, then files or folders in this "Find All
Files" dialog box, make sure where it says "look in", that it is looking at your
C: drive (or, if you have multiple
hard drives or
partitions, be sure "All Local Drives" is selected) and be sure there is a
check in the box next to where it says "include subfolders" Now, click your
mouse pointer in the box that says "named" and type the following, exactly as it
is here.
*.tmp,*.chk,~*.*
That's
asterisk period t m p comma asterisk period c h k comma tilde asterisk period
asterisk with no spaces.
(The
"tilde" is the little squiggle above the Tab key on the left end of your
keyboard.....DO NOT FORGET THE TILDE as ~*.* will find all files which begin
with ~, but *.* without the tilde would find all files on the drive.....and you
DON'T want to do that!!)
Once it
finds all the files, it will list them in the box below and at the bottom it
will tell you how many it found
Hit ctrl+a
to select them all, then hit your delete key....If it won't delete some of them,
that's because they are attached to some program running in the background, so
you may have to delete them one at a time.
All of
these files are safe to delete and removing them can solve some crazy problems
you may be having. However, if you are concerned about this, leave the files
you deleted in your recycle bin for a few days until you are sure all is working
properly. This way, you can restore the files from the recycle bin if you have
a problem...or, as is *always* the case when I do this, just permanently delete
the files from the recycle bin once you are sure all is well.
Once they
are all deleted, you can save this process as an Icon on your desktop so you can
repeat it with one click.
Still
inside the "Find All Files" box, go to the File menu and click on "Save
Search"......this will put an icon on your desktop that you can click on any
time you want to delete temps again!
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