# Windows xP is hiding folders from me! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 7, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161 "2008-12-07T20:48:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/1 "2008-12-07T20:48:42Z")
My disk is full, so I ran a program (called piechart.exe from Equi4 Software) to give me a list of what was taking up space on the C: drive. The program shows a lot of stuff in a directory that does NOT EXIST according to both windows and Dos. Where is this directory hiding, and how do I access it? details: the program shows a folder tree like this: c: . Documents and settings. … WWW … local settings … Temporary Internet files … Content.IE5 (by the way: I have IE 6 installed, not ie5) … KNDJYMFP … and a million files listed under kndjymfp But I can’t see any folders called “content.ie5” !!! I’ve tried using the standard search function. I’ve tried “my computer” and “windows explorer” (and, yes,I have selected the option for “Show hidden files and folders” under windows explorer tools ) And I’ve tried the DOS command line , starting at the C: prompt and typing "dir /s _content_ But all I can find is a simple directory tree that includes the first 4 lines above, like this: c: www local setting temporary internet files And then only a couple dozen small files listed under “Temporary Internet files” There is no directory called “Content.ie5” and no directory called KNDJYMFP anywhere on the disk So where is all this stuff? the piechart program says that “Content.ie5” contains 32 files using 25 gigs. My computer only has an 80 gig disk, partitioned into two parts of 40 gigs each. my C: drive is 40 gigs and holds all the windows stuff, and all my data is in D: drive I’m using Windows XP home edition, ( legally registered, and I have the original install disks) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/2 "2008-12-07T21:00:32Z")
That’s normal. The files you’re not seeing are called “hidden”,and they’re meant to be things an untrained user has no business touching. There are thousands of files like that in every Windows PC around the world. The particular ones you’re looking at are your browser cache. That size is way bigger than you should have it set to. What you want to do is change the settings on your browser to reduce the cache size to about 50MB, not 25GB. The instructions to do that depend on which browser you have. For IE7, select tools, internet options, then on the general tab in the browser history section click the [Settings] button. There is a “disk space to use” up/down control. Set that to 50 & click [OK]. It’ll chug for awhile as it deletes 24.95 GB of old web pages & graphics & stuff it’s been saving. And then you’ll have plenty of disk space for your real files, and your browsing will probably be a little quicker too. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/3 "2008-12-07T21:01:22Z")
There’s another option to check. Something like “show system files and folders.” ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/4 "2008-12-07T21:02:54Z")
Go to My Computer. Open, say, your C: drive. Under Tools, click Folder Options. You’ll get a box with tabs. Click on the View tab. In the Advanced Settings window, somewhere a little down the list is Hidden Files and Folders. There are two options. Pick “Show hidden files and folders.” Click the “Apply to All Folders” button at the top. Click “OK” at the bottom. You should be able to see all the hidden folders and files along with the normal ones; the hidden files will be slightly faded-out looking. ETA: as **LSLGuy** says, they’re largely hidden for a reason. You can delete anything from your browser cache folder safely but there are a lot of folders that shouldn’t be messed with. Delete the cache, set the cache limit to a lower size and that’ll keep your disk space cleaner. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/5 "2008-12-07T21:08:10Z")
Two things to try: [ol] [li]Open Up My Computer. Right-click on C: drive and select Properties. Click on the Disk Cleanup button. (Your computer will calculate what needs to clean up and then bring up a new box.) Select to delete files from the Recycle Bin and Temporary Internet Files. Hit the OK button to delete them. Repeat for all hard drives on your computer.[/li][li]Install [CCleaner](http://www.ccleaner.com/). Run it.[/li][/ol] Report back your results. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/6 "2008-12-07T21:15:24Z")
I guess people don’t read the OP, eh? Those directories are hidden by Windows, including its command line shell, even if you enable “show hidden/system files”. Use a third-party file browser such as XYplorer and you can see 'em. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/7 "2008-12-08T04:19:41Z")
thanks, **duckster**. I ran the ccleaner program, and I now have 25 gigs of free space on the disk. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/8 "2008-12-08T07:45:55Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > I guess people don’t read the OP, eh? Those directories are hidden by Windows, including its command line shell, even if you enable “show hidden/system files”. Use a third-party file browser such as XYplorer and you can see 'em. Not only are people not reading (or at least not understanding) the OP but, as is very often the case, they are giving advice that is totally misguided. The IE cache is not kept in files with the normal disk structure but files are bundled into one big file to save disk space. That folder is not really a folder but a single file. The way IE handles the cache causes some probles sometimes like not being able to save images or to see the source code of a page. These glitches have been well documented. > [@](#): > > All versions of Internet Explorer have a bug in the way they handle the browser cache. In some circumstances, such as when a page isn’t fully loaded because you press the stop button, IE will not update its cache information but does not delete the partial file. IE has lost track of these files, and they will not be deleted if you clear the cache through IE’s menu option (Tools | Internet Options | General tab | Delete Files). You can demonstrate this by using the menu delete option and retesting; you will probably still see several megabytes of disk space being used by your IE cache. > > Solutions > For manual deletion, use this method: > > Open an Explorer folder window (for example, double-click My Computer). From the Explorer menu select Tools | Folder Options | View. Make sure that you have checked the box next to “Show hidden files and folders” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”. > Start Internet Explorer and click Tools | Internet Options | General tab | Settings | View Files. > IE should have opened up a folder window, typically viewing a folder with the name of C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files. Put your cursor in the Address area of the folder window and add the name \content.ie5 to the name, so in our example the Address bar would now read c:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\content.ie5. > You should see a series of four or more folders with random eight-character names like ADOZMZS1. Delete each of these randomly named folders. You may get an error that some files are in use, this is normal if you are currently at a web site since those files are in the cache. Hold down the Shift key when deleting the files so they do not go to the Recycle Bin. > If desired, reset the folder options you changed in step 1. > In some cases, the IE cache index (INDEX.DAT) file may be damaged and should be deleted. Microsoft documents 306837 and 293402 have additional information on symptoms of the problem and how to remove the file. In other words, these are not hidden files but they are files which do not exist as such files in the disk structure. They exist as part of bigger files. Similar to how Outlook Express keeps emails. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/9 "2008-12-08T10:39:27Z")
I don’t see where it says that the contents of the cache are not real files. Rather, it seems to me that Windows Explorer and cmd.exe hide the Content.IE5 directory. Other non-Microsoft file browsers do not hide it, and its contents appear as regular files. Now, you could be right that Windows does some deep under-the-hood tricksiness which makes Content.IE5 look like a directory. You could verify that by looking at the directory tables I suppose. But that is a separate issue from the way Content.IE5 is hidden by Microsoft’s own utilities, whether it is a regular directory or some weird pseudo-directory. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/10 "2008-12-08T10:50:12Z")
To correct myself, cmd.exe does not hide Content.IE5. Use dir /as, instead of just dir, and it shows up. So it looks to me like it’s just an Explorer thing. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/11 "2008-12-08T12:21:30Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > I don’t see where it says that the contents of the cache are not real files. Rather, it seems to me that Windows Explorer and cmd.exe hide the Content.IE5 directory. Other non-Microsoft file browsers do not hide it, and its contents appear as regular files. Now, you could be right that Windows does some deep under-the-hood tricksiness which makes Content.IE5 look like a directory. You could verify that by looking at the directory tables I suppose. But that is a separate issue from the way Content.IE5 is hidden by Microsoft’s own utilities, whether it is a regular directory or some weird pseudo-directory. You may be right as what I know is from earlier versions of IE which did, indeed, have files bundled into bigger files. That may have changed in newer versions of IE. If other third party disk content browsers list the files normally then I assume they are real files within the structure of the disk. This has some interesting info: [http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node\_id=49589](http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=49589) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/12 "2008-12-08T13:14:16Z")
**sailor** - IE at least at/after v5 stores the cache files as ordinary files. The names are obfuscated & a folder hierarchy imposed on them to improve performance. As a result, even for a pro, digging around under the %userprofile%\local settings emporary internet files\ folder using cmd.exe is pretty useless. Explorer (disk, not IE), flattens this out so it looks like an ordinary roster of files in a single virtual folder, and selective manual deletion is possible. All- I agree we’d all do better to pitch our advice to the level of the OP. SInce the guy (gal?) has no clue what hidden files are, telling him how to expose them so he can damage them is not helpful advice IMO. Suggesting he run the built-in disk cleaner as someone did above is good advice. It’s simple enough for the OP to do and do correctly. But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem that IE is trying to use a 25GB+ cache on an 40GB system partition. So the cache will fill up again, and fill the partition up again too. Not to mention that a 25GB cache is just plain a bad idea regardless of the free space available. Resizing the cache downwards will cause it to clear oldest stuff above the new size limit, solving his immediate problem & preventing a future recurrence. And it is also simple enough for him to do accurately & safely. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-is-hiding-folders-from-me/476161/13 "2008-12-08T19:02:58Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > [I agree we’d all do better to pitch our advice to the level of the OP. SInce the guy (gal?) has no clue what hidden files are, telling him how to expose them so he can damage them is not helpful advice IMO. > > Suggesting he run the built-in disk cleaner as someone did above is good advice. It’s simple enough for the OP to do and do correctly. But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem that IE is trying to use a 25GB+ cache on an 40GB system partition. So the cache will fill up again, and fill the partition up again too. Not to mention that a 25GB cache is just plain a bad idea regardless of the free space available. > > Resizing the cache downwards will cause it to clear oldest stuff above the new size limit, solving his immediate problem & preventing a future recurrence. And it is also simple enough for him to do accurately & safely. thanks all. Lots of help! But a couple of things: I do know what hidden files are: (that’s why I said in the OP that I had selected “Show hidden files”. What I didn’t do was select the “show system folders” option, so I got confused over why the files remained hidden, and had to ask you all for help. But what really surprises me is that I should **not** have been able to accumulate 25 gigs of cached files. Under the “tools–temporary internet files–settings” menu, I have it set to 1226 MB of disk space. That’s probably too much, but it’s still only 12 gigs, right? Not 25. And the first thing I did when I realized I had a problem with disk space was to clear those temporary files. But first ,I clicked on “view files” and “View objects”: but what I saw was a pretty short list of a hundred or so files. Not the 65,000 lines of text that the “piechart” program produced when it searched my cache. Then I selected “delete files”, but obviously it did not work. So what are those few hundred files, and why are they seperate from the much larger list of files in the cache? So what is up with that menu ? (Tools-Internet Options-settings) It seems to be unconnected to the folder that is actually doing the work ( content.IE5)