Deleting Temporary internet files

I have been asked by a friend to 'sort out' a Compaq Presario 2500 ( running XP home SP3 ) he has been given to him by his daughter. She has removed all personal files but I have found a huge quantity of Temporary Internet Files. There are about 20 folders each containing 550MB to 650Mb of files!! I found them when I was trying to run Malwarebytes Anti Malware and it got to 50 minutes and was still checking files! I went into a DOS window and navigated to \Contents.IE5. Did a DIR but it would not show any files. ( I was sure I could delete them from here faster than Windows can !!) Any ideas how I can get rid of these quickly as there isn't enough hours in the day to delete them 'normally'.

 

Internet options in Control Panel > Browsing history > Settings and set IE to store only xxxMB (I've set mine to 48MB).

 

Thanks for your prompt reply Satrow. The machine was set on 595MB max, I've now set it to 50MB. This still does not equate to the 398,004 files, 26 folders, and 12.2 GB of space it is taking up on a 60GB drive. I can only think that Windows starts another folder when the limit is reached, therfore storing much more than it was set for, in numerous folders. I still need to get rid of these files in a rapid manner. I have the supplied discs to enable me to restore to factory state but I have spent the past 5 days, on and off, tuning it to suit what it is going to be used for. Removing and addding programmes, old user accounts ect and am loathe to undo all this work. The files will do no harm on the machine except take up a lot of space and slow things down. Its a low spec machine as it is and needs all the help it can get!

 

CCleaner's your friend for taking out a lot of the crud that accumulates over time. I don't use the defaults, see my settings (Windows 7) in this thread.

 

If you're talking about Windows files, a couple of memory hogs are system restore(some %15 of hard drive=9GB IIRC), you can easily reduce that to %5. A lesser culprit is the hibernation file(hyberfile.sys) which is equal to the RAM installed and if you don't use it then get rid of it.

Sorry to ask this but was the Recycle Bin cleared after the wife deleted her stuff? I got more but let's start with that. Use help to find where the controls live.

 

BTW,my above post has nothing to do with temp files, sorry. :-o satrow nailed it.

 

Many thanks to all who have replied to my post. I have tried CCleaner as I use it frequently but it doesn't find the offending files as they are not in the usual directory. They are in a folder which was set up by an old account, which has been removed.(I think this is part of the problem). I need something that I can point to this folder and delete it. It is in the usual path i.e:- c:\ Documents and Settings\username\Local settings\ Temporary Internet Files\Content.ie5) but the 'username' account does not exist so CCleaner will not see it. I will try ATF cleaner but it sounds very much like CCleaner. Will do it tomorow as it's 2am here in UK and I need some shuteye (I'm an old retired Geek!) Computers. What would we do without them!

 

Have you tried to take ownership of the folder yet, maybe try it in safe mode. Just shots in the dark I'm afraid.

 

In addition to the help given by all the above members ( all more knowledgeable than myself ), if you can see the folders with Windows Explorer then you should be able to right click on them and choose delete. I ran into this same problem two weeks ago and that is how I did it. Hope this helps!

 

This will help you

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/file/187-tfc-temp-file-cleaner-by-oldtimer/

save to desktop and right click to icon run as admin !! :cool

 

Doc Moriarty, OTM is running at the moment, thanks for the info. Interesting prog. It has cleaned out a lot of gunk and is now working on the TIF folder I was having problems with. It is deleting files but has been running for over 2 hours now and I'm wondering whether it will be quicker than Windows. There is 12GB to remove! I deleted one folder in Windows, which took about 50 minutes so 26 x50 minutes is about 21 hours! I'm hoping to do it much quicker. Now there is another problem. I minimised OTM and realised it had removed my desktop so I now can't see it.Only the drive light blinking is telling me it is still working. Hope it appears when it's finished, although it will not be a problem if it auto reboots anyway. Will let you know how it progresses.

 

Wow, there's some sort of conflict there, are you running a real-time anti-virus on your rig ATM, if so then kill it until this is done.

That's one reason I hate running cleaning programs, I really hope your desktop comes back. I'm not saying that OTM is bad, just that I'd try other things first in Windows.

 

Gentlemen, I must thank you all for your input. The problem is solved, I have gained 11GB on the drive. Extra thanks to Dr Moriarty for suggesting OTM. It did the trick. It took 4 hours to delete the files but that was much shorter than Windows would have done it. In my last reply I said that OTM had removed my desktop but was still working. Eventually a window appeared telling me to reboot and all was well. This info is for anyone who has the same problem arise when using it. It did work a treat though.

 

This is a stupid question Gents, but how do I mark this thread as resolved?