CYBER NOTES February, 2007 by Dave Benore

temporary Files—What are they

Using the Internet and other programs on your computer, Windows XP creates files that are called temporary. Ha! They stay there until you dump them. These files are supposed to speed up your computer. Well, it probably does but the amount is so small one would hardly ever notice it.

So, why do we care about temporary files? Because if they build up for too long they actually slow your computer up! There is too much “stuff” for your computer to look through.

So what can we do about it? We dump them every so often, say every month or so. How?

The biggest problem comes from your web browser, Internet Explorer. It stores bunches of unnecessary stuff. Here is how to dump the temp files. (You can do this online or off-line.) Open your Internet Explorer. If you have downloaded the newer version, version 7, there is a little difference from version 6. V.6: Click “Tools” on the menu bar. V.7: Click “Tools” on the tool bar. From the menu that opens, select “Internet Options”. A dialog box will open. Again there is a little difference between V.6 and V.7.

Look for the button that says “delete temporary files”. Click it. If you see a little box that opens, offering you a check box to “delete off-line content”, check it before deleting the temporary files. Look for the button that says “delete cookies”. Click it. You can delete “History” also if you wish. Finally, click OK and back out of your web browser. You have done it!

But wait! There is one other place to look. Your XP system accumulates shortcuts for about every thing it does. It stores them as files in a folder called “recent”. Here is how to get to them so you can delete them.

Open “My Computer”. (It’s on the “start” menu.) Double click the following, in order: Local Disk (C:), Documents and Settings, Owner (or your account name if you have one), and Recent. You should see a mess of file names, all identified as shortcuts. (To see the shortcut identifier, click the “views” button on the toolbar, just right of the folder button, and select “details”.) These files can all be deleted by single clicking on any one of them, then hold the “control” key down while clicking the letter “a” (for all). This will highlight every file in the list. Then hold down the “shift” key while depressing the “delete” key. (The shift key hold causes the system to delete the files totally, without going through the recycle bin.) You are done!

(I have actually seen one computer that would not connect to the Internet until the “Recent” temp files were deleted. There were several hundred of them!)