My Temp file in Windows folder is huge. Can I delete?

Factual Questions
1

I was surprised that Norton didnt delete these in the quick cleanup which said that it deleted temp files. Anyway, is there any harm to deleting these? How about the System folder?

2

you prolly can delete the Temp folder without any trouble, but DONT delete the System folder, very important things are stored there.

Frodo

3
  1. DO NOT delete the temp folder. It’s there for a reason.
  2. Note the time.
  3. Do a Shutdown/Restart.
  4. Open the Temp folder to a Details view.
  5. Sort the contents of the temp folder by file type.
  6. Delete any .TMP files that pre-date the reboot.
  7. Sort the contents of the temp folder by time.
  8. Seriously consider deleting any other files that pre-date the reboot, bearing in mind that this might still cause Bad Things to happen.
  9. In the root of c:, look for a bunch of pre-reboot .CHK files. These are leftovers from scandisk. They can be deleted, too.
4

There is a simple way:

#1, Restart in MS-Dos mode. Note you MUST restart, not just bring up a DOS prompt

#2, change directories to the temp directory using cd c:\windows emp then hit enter.

#3, type in del *.tmp and hit enter.

If you don’t feel comfortable with the above steps, don’t do it because if you delete the wrong stuff you are gonna have problems.

Eric

5

KidCharlemagne, did you get the answer you were looking for? In your OP title, you said temp file, but the answers were for temp folder.

If you really meant temp folder, then the answers that you got are good.

Otherwise, you might need a slightly different answer. If so, can you give us the file name? It could be your page file, a giant temp file that speeds up your computer. It’s a file you want and Windows won’t let you delete it.

6

Fred Langa, columnist for Information Week and formerly for Windows Magazine, has developed routines to clean up all temporary files. Go to http://www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm for more info.

Note: READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE RUNNING ANYTHING.

7

In regard to CaveMike’s post:

If you reboot in MS-Dos mode there should not be any temp files from Windows up to Win 2000. There maybe some temp files created by other programs. If it is a particular file you are concerned with the directory it is in and the file name will help.

By the way, if you try either way of deleting temp files it would be a good idea to reboot in safe mode and run a defrag. If you disk is really fragmented it will help with the speed some and it will also defrag the virtual memory sectors of the disk.

Eric