Reclaiming space

Just realised that I am getting low on space on my c drive. After
having a look around, I've found that the folder
c:\users\<username>\local\temp has over 17Gb of stuff in it!

Is it safe to delete all of this?

TIA


cheers,
Len

Copy all of the contents to a new folder(a temporary temp folder?) then
delete the contents of the temp folder. Most likely this will not cause any
problems. If it does you can selectively copy things back from the temporary
temp folder to the temp folder. Give it several days without a problem and
delete the temporary temp folder as well.

"Len Cuff" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Just realised that I am getting low on space on my c drive. After
> having a look around, I've found that the folder
> c:\users\<username>\local\temp has over 17Gb of stuff in it!
>
> Is it safe to delete all of this?
>
> TIA
>
>
> cheers,
> Len

"Len Cuff" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Just realised that I am getting low on space on my c drive. After
> having a look around, I've found that the folder
> c:\users\<username>\local\temp has over 17Gb of stuff in it!
>
> Is it safe to delete all of this?

If you have rebooted since last installing any software,
yes, you can delete any temp files.

Many times when you install a program it will use a
temp file and some files cannot be replaced until you
restart your computer because they are in use. Some
software installs do not tell you that you need to restart
your computer for the install to complete fully.

To be on the safe side never delete temp files after
installing software until you have rebooted.

I've encountered many users who install a program or
update and are even prompted to "restart now" or
"restart later", they click "restart later". Well, they forget
all about it and then do some disk cleanup and delete
those necessary temp files before restarting.

A useful hard drive cleaner.
http://www.ccleaner.com/


-Michael

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:08:27 GMT, Len Cuff <>
wrote:

>
> Just realised that I am getting low on space on my c drive. After
> having a look around, I've found that the folder
> c:\users\<username>\local\temp has over 17Gb of stuff in it!
>
> Is it safe to delete all of this?


Yes, they can, and should be, deleted periodically.

The temp folder provides workspace for programs. Programs can create
temporary files there for their own temporary use. Each program should
delete all its temporary files when it closes, but for various reasons
it doesn't always happen (for example, if the program crashes, it
never gets to do this). That's why it's a good idea to periodically
clean out anything left there.

Also note that there are some program installations which work in two
steps. The first step concludes by writing temporary files and
rebooting. The second step starts automatically after rebooting and
needs to find those files there (and then deletes them when it's
done).

Other than doing it automatically when rebooting (that would interfere
with installations like the kind I described), it's always safe to
delete the contents of the temp folder. Because it's safe to delete
any temp files that aren't open and in use by an application, and
since Windows won't let you delete open files, it's safe to (try to)
delete them at any time. If any fail to delete because they're open,
they'll either be deleted automatically when the app using them
closes, or you'll get them the next time you delete manually.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
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