IE5 temp internet files when using IE6 - why?

Factual Questions
1

Using a program called “FolderSize” to help locate where drive space was being used (I can’t believe how little I have left), I found a space hog – not a huge one, but one that makes backing up “My Documents” to a CD much more time consuming.

In the path c:\Documents and Settings\us\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0H2BCPEF are 504.79 MB of I-don’t-know-what. I don’t know what because when I look with Win Explorer, I find only files under Temporary Internet Files – files whose size do not sum up to the 500+ MB listed by FolderSize or by folder properties from within Win Explorer.

Wait, breaking news, if I go through the path using DOS commands in the command window, I can get to the Temp Internet Files directory. Again, there are no subdirectories listed, but I can nonetheless CD into them (using the names from FolderSize). In the offending 0h2bcpef directory, I find an ISO image of a linux disk I downloaded.

Now, the questions are:

  1. Why is IE6 saving shit in …\Content.IE5,
  2. When I select “Delete Files” under Temporary Internet Files under Tools/Internet Options, why aren’t these files deleted?
  3. Why are these files so hard to get to (I do have win explorer set to show system files, etc.)?

For the record, I am using XP. When I installed it, I had it upgrade from 98, not a clean wipe.

2
  1. IE5 and IE6 use the same cache folder because that way… I don’t know, you get to save your cache when you upgrade from 5 to 6, I guess. Just the way it is.
  2. I believe that temporary files not actually getting deleted was a regular problem with Win98. AFAIK, XP (possibly even before) fixed the problem. If you downloaded that ISO back when you had 98, it’s probably left over from then. If you downloaded it recently, however, then I think I’ll have to take a close look into my cache, too. :eek:
  3. I’m not aware of any good reason for why they did that, either.
3

The ISO file was downloaded almost a couple of weeks ago (I’ve had XP for ~1 yr).

Maybe deleting temp internet files doesn’t delete ALL temp internet files, but those older than a couple weeks. Who knows.

4

Many programs leave temporary files around after installation; cleaning these up is not a high priority to the program designers. Many temp files are deliberately hidden and often use arcane names. Many uninstall programs do not delete all the files that were installed or used during install.

My philosphy is, if it is in a temp folder that I did not create, wipe them suckers out. You may have to drop down to DOS and use the ATTRIB, DEL and RD commands and look for not only hidden files, but hidden directories and directories with odd extensions and odd characters.

As far as the amount of disk space used, some displays show the true file sizes and others show the allocated space on the drive. Since Windows allocates space in large chunks; even a 1-byte file wil use up 64K or more of space. So the total space used by this example file would be 1 byte, but 64K is subracted from the available pool.

If you are so unlucky as to have a large number of very small files, deleting 50KB of files can recover 50MB of space!

As far as IE6 using IE5 space, that was probably inherited from an older installation, as Hauky said. When you upgraded, some of the settings were preserved for continuity. It doesn’t really matter.