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OK, what am I missing here, with DLEINDEX.BAT just deleting the INDEX.DAT file in \Windows\Tempor~1\Content.ie5 directory? I am new to the discussions here on DELINDEX, but I seem to be missing something.
In Content.ie5 there is a lot of other junk that needs to be deleted, after the INDEX.DAT file is deleted, as there is no longer an index to point to them.
I know that Disk Cleanup from System Tools deletes most of these files, but not all. There can still be a lot of junk left in the hidden directories off of Content.ie5, that are still there and full of now un-indexed files. To see them, first run Disk Cleanup to clear out the files that it can clean out, so you can see what folders are left. You can see then these folders by running Disk Cleanup again, and at the screen with "Temporary Internet Files" highlighted, click on "View Files". At the top of the list will be the folders that still remain. Of course its rather difficult to get Windows to display most of the content of these hidden system folders.
In a DOS session you can access them, go to \Windows\Tempor~1\Content.ie5 first. A "DIR" or even "DIR /AH" will not show these hidden directories but a "DIR /AS" will. Given these hidden system directory names, you can do a DIR of them to see a list of all the files in them. Some can build up a large number of files over time.
The thing I do not understand and seem to be missing the reason for, is why does DELINDEX.DAT not just do a "DELTREE /Y C:\WINDOWS\TEMPOR~1\CONTENT.IE5\*.*" command instead?
This way ALL of these file are gone.
Sure, I know. It takes too looooong to delete that many files from a diskette batch file with the DELTREE command, compared to just the INDEX.DAT file. And it would be deleting all the other files in CONTENT.IE5 which take too long. But its the only way to clean it out. (Power users need to take a rest room break anyway to clean out the rest of the junk.
Windows, when booted, will create the INDEX.DAT file, some of the hidden directories, and even that little hidden DESKTOP.INF file that contains the UICLSID= statement with the unique to your system ID, that identifies your machine to any and all web pages that you visit. (So much for Micro$oft's respect for privacy, an ID unique to your machine. (I wondered what patching a different value in this one will do.) Then the first time you visit some of the web sites, they will recreate the files in these hidden folders.
I have not had any problems with just getting rid of everything.
So back to my original question. What am I missing as to why DELINDEX.BAT should not just clean Content.ie5 out?
To keep this simple: Renaissance Man (the author of Delindex) wrote a batch file program that should be considered a giant leap toward cleaning your computer of hidden and unwanted files. He could have encased it in an .exe but left it open so you and I can add, delete, rearrange, and revise the program to meet our specific goals.
I downloaded Delindex.bat, made a copy, and refined the copy for my requirements. I use it everyday.
RM has provided the foundation, and it's up to us to acclimate it to our own environment.
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It is assumed that he plans to update this batch file soon, so the topic under discussion is: Are there any reasons that this change can not added to the MORE section of this or any other batch file?
There are many other files that I normally delete weekly. But these files in question in the temporary internet files area should be a concern. They are not deleted by any available easy process short of format. It is interesting to note that there are HTML and *.gif files in these hidden and currently safe folders from this web site. Showing that any site can place files on your system and the only way to delete them currently is to go in and find them and manually delete them.
In addition I recently discovered that at least one System Tools program, after loading HTML scripts, then checks for scripts of almost exactly the same names in these folders. Should a name conflict occur, these files could hijack a System Tools program. And it would be very difficult to determine how and why Windows ME is failing, or to fix it.
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Delindex does remove all of the files in content ie. Not just the index.dat file.
While im viewing this page... when i run disk clean up then do it again choosing to view files all i see left are a few cookies from today. I manually deleted them just now.
Now:
I have....
C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
This folder is empty.. It contains the following folders which are all empty..C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\01EV4T6B
C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\BV6SVNGA
C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\GZRSBCM5
C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\OZSX030N
I chose to right click these randomly named folders and delete them. Now i open a new window heading to google.com. 2 of them reappear. This means they are recreated and one would have to delete them every time they opened a new folder.
I also found that if i delete all the files in: C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 the files in all of the other folders are deleted. This means that you dont need to bother deleting the folders as all of the files in those folders are deleted and the folders just get recreated anyhow.
Heres how to get to these goofily named folders the easy way. Instead of double clicking the my computer icon go to the start menu and find the shortcut for windows explorer and launch it . That shortcut launches explorer with the folders tree enabled. Now click the plus signs next to C; then next to windows then next to temporary internet files then next to content ie. All those random folders are in a list under content ie.
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JackG,
after rereading your post i wondered if i addressed your question or not.Were you asking about the removing of the randomly named folders?
Once the author of delindex has a look he may be able to answer your question better.
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I’m missing something here. On line 104 of DELINDEX.BAT (4 lines after the :CONTINUE label) is this line:
deltree /y c:\windows\tempor~1
This deletes the folder AND everything in it, including all the files and subfolders. I can’t get any clearer than that. When you reboot, Windows/Explorer rebuilds the files, and you can’t stop that. The whole point is to keep the never ending buildup to a minimum.
Of course, if you’re using the LESS option, that only deletes the index.dat files and the contents of the Temp folders. Maybe you should try the MORE option if you haven’t already.
If I’m still missing something here, please post back and explain.
Yes I am thinking of a minor update of DELINDEX, primarily to take out the LESS option and do minor cleanup. On May 5th, I’m going to post a file, DELTA.BAT, (on both the Win9x & WinME forums) that will delete index.dat files every time you start or reboot your computer. It’s incredibly simple, but I’ve tested it in many variations to make sure when it is posted it does no harm. I’ve been using the final version for about six weeks now, and am working on the notes that go with it. If you only use DELINDEX with the LESS option, it’s silly to use a startup disk when you don’t have to.
JackG, since you’re "new to the discussions here on DELINDEX" look here:
ME/19918
9x/107273
ME/20337
ME/21604
ME/21707
ME/21997
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I just wanted to add something i thought might confuse someone. It made me take a second look. I thought maybe JohnG was experiencing this.
Ive always assumed those randomly named folders were deleted and recreated because of the deltree /y c:\windows\tempor~1 line.
To make sure i checked to see what was there and found 4 folders. After running delindex just now i took a look at temp internet files and saw 4 folders still there.
Initially this made me wonder if they were being deleted. That brought me back to the deltree command that should have deleted everything.
Then i noticed the folders were named differently. After slapping myself on the forhead i realized my original assumption was correct.
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The best way to see that they are really gone is to see if you can find the directories WHILE YOU ARE IN DOS, i.e., BEFORE they are recreated.
Type Dir c:\windows /a:d/p at the a:\ prompt.
(The /a:d just displays directories and the /p pauses to show one screen at a time.)
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Ok, wrote this long note and had to go some where before finishing it. I missed seeing the line in the DELINDEX MORE section as I had only ran the LESS one time and was looking at that code. I was looking for a line with Content.IE5 in it and did see it. Failed to notice your deletree one level above that. So you already have what I
wanted anyway. Sorry about the confusion But here is the note I wrote that explains what I was seeing. I have already figured out how this works. So it was I who was missing something (line 104)OK, you are looking in the right place. But do not have the problem I was seeing.
Once the system is "cleaned out" by deltree of all files and folders in Content.IE5, and the system is booted, Window creates the four directories that you find. And from this clean state, these files do seem to be cleaned out (except for active files) by running Disk CleanUP and you don't see the problem I ran into.
Back three weeks ago:
The test case I started with, was my system that had been having problems with random hangs of IE 6. It had been updated from IE 5 four months ago in an attempt to solve the random hangs. Most of the time it was just IE that hangs. The rest of the system then becomes unstable and has to be killed with system reset as it will not shut down when this happens. In this configuration, after running Disk Cleanup I discovered about 8 or 9 of these strange named folders in Content.IE5, some marked as System others as Hidden-ReadOnly. In these folders were hundreds of Hidden files, some as old as last summer, just a few months after I last did an install of Windows ME. They were not being cleaned out by the Disk Cleanup process. I had noticed the files when doing backup copy of the drive using XCOPY and saw a large number of files in the Content.IE5 path.
I had not used DELINDEX.bat, but I read briefly through it and noted the comment about deleting the INDEX.DAT causing no harm. So I deleted INDEX.DAT, from a Boot diskette, and booted the system, ran
Disk Cleanup and most of the files were still in some of the folders off of Content.IE5. I looked at some of the
files and recognized them as coming from two sites I access daily. Some folders were cleaned out except for a few files.It occurs to me now, that I must have been looking at files in the extra folders, other than the four folders that I now know Windows creates when it boots if they are not there. I was also looking at them from a bootable diskette.
I then deleted these all of these folders, rebooted.
After thinking about the problem over the weekend, I booted to my other disk drive, where I found the same problem. This drive is used for testing. Created about six months ago, and updated to IE 6 about four months ago. Files were not being removed by Disk Cleanup from all these these extra folders, but some were.. I then repeated the process of deleting the INDEX.DAT, booting, Disk Cleanup and many files still remained. Again manual deleting of the folders and index file cleaned things up.
I then ran for several weeks and the problems with IE hanging seems to have all but gone away. However I have not been accessing some of the web sites I normally use, as I have been working on other things, tracking down windows slowdown problems, but that's anther story. Last week I was helping a young student over the internet
get rid of her bad slow down problem and a problem with IE 6 hanging sometimes. After resolving the slow down (RESTORE problem), and while looking at a directory listing I found she had eight of the strange folders
like I did, so I had her delete them. Only four came back. Her system is now more stable and working except for one unrelated problem with HELP not working, again another story.This weekend I notice several forum appends regarding DELINDEX and started looking at the problem I saw. This time I found six of these folders, two of which were not being cleaned out by Disk Cleanup. This time I
downloaded DELINDEX and ran it with the LESS option to see what happens. Many of the files remained in the extra folders. So I wrote my note and posted it to provoke some discussion on what is going on here, that in my case, DELINDEX is not clearing out.After your response, I now see that once I have cleared the extra folders I was seeing, so only the default four remain after booting, these are in fact cleared out. As I have Netscape.com as my home page (strange I know, but I use netscape for e-mail, IE 6 for browser. I am a very strong believer in not allowing any version of Outlook or MS Word on my systems, as these are the programs that most virus and worms attack through.) it can put a number of files into these folders. My limited testing so far indicates clearing Content.IE5 seems to
work without any problem.The point is I had a large number of files in these extra folders that were not being cleaned out, and for some reason, after being deleted several of these folders came back after several weeks of use.
Right now, my system is working as you described. And I currently only have the four folders.
My IE 6 seems to be more stable. But then I have not really had a chance to test it in the environment where I was having persistent trouble for the past eight months. I am in the process of starting a controlled rebuild of my Windows ME, using lessons learned recently. And trying to control and check things each step of the way so that I can find things that make ME more stable. I have discovered some interesting very things to look into.
Right now I have no way to reproduce the original problem. And will have to wait and see if it occurs again. But it does look like the MORE options will solve it. Sorry about missing that line. I just was not looking for something that would clear out the files from higher up the path.
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Had time to read you notes in more detail and it brings up a minor concern of mine. Deleting of the OPT-OUT cookie from doubleclick.com. This cookie seem to be useful, even AD-Aware takes special note of it and does not delete it. I knows its not very practical to handle not deleting this from a batch file. Maybe something should be noted in the documentation that this cookie gets deleted along with the others and that those interested in keeping it should restore it after runing DELINDEX.
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