Mystery file on my desktop

Factual Questions
1

Periodically, (every 5-6 days) there appears on my desktop (Win 98SE O/S) a “mystery file” bearing only the tilde character (~) as its name. The icon shown for this file is the “generic” Windoze waving window logo, the one that is displayed when Windoze doesn’t know how to open files with an unspecified extension, (in this case, NO extension.) The properties associated with this file are
211KB (216,152) bytes, 217,088 bytes used. File creation/modified/access dates are always identical and, none-the-less, the current date. I can delete the file but within a day or two it returns with the then-current date shown in its properties.

Could this be related to the Mystery Sound Clue" that is also invaiding my computer? It works like this: At itervals from several minutes to several hours, my computer will give forth with the “critical stop” sound effect. Ordinarily, when this sounds, an error message box will also pop up giving the nature of the sound and what action to take, but not so in this case. No pop-up, no error message, only the “clunk” sound. I have not noticed the appearance of the mystery file to be coincidental with the sound produced. Virus checks are negative. Ideas? TIA.

2

It’s your Windows Address Book. See this article for more information.

3

Althought the MS-Outlook Address Book is definitely a possibility, other MS and non-MS applications also produce files that begin with a tilde as a temporary workfile, e.g. MS-Word and other MS-Office applications used to open it in the same directory as the original file, depending on your settings (and probably still do, but I quit using those programs years ago) If an error or improper shutdown kept a workfile from closing on exit, it would persist permanently.

The 3-letter file extension can help identify it. You can also open it in a hex editor, but that requires some specialized knowledge to identify it. In most cases, if you’ve closed all your apps, or restarted and a workfile remains, you can delete it with no harm. It’s junk