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Doug Keener
07-10-2003, 11:02 AM
Well, I have discovered a little wrinkle in the simple deleting of temporary internet files. Those I can delete by the 'disk clean' method or from 'internet tools', 'options' route. There are two folders within the temporary internet files. One is called 'content.ie5'. The total size of this folder is over 1 gigabite. This folder has sub folders that seem to be named in an increasing random alphanumeric fashion. Many of the files within these folders are 'jpeg', 'txt' and a whole laundry list of other types.

Does anyone know why these are there and is it safe to delete them. I'm running windows 98.

I'm having a cataract removed in a few hours so I probably won't be looking at my computer for awhile. Thanks for any advise. :confused:

Lee Schierer
07-11-2003, 11:25 AM
If you open IE and go to the "Internet Options" under the tools tab at the top of the main window, you wll get a menu where you can delete the temporary internet files. Look under the "General" tab. If you delete the files here, I believe the file you are concerned with will get considerably smaller. You can also adjust the size that this file is allowed to be before it deletes things automatically.

Doug Keener
07-11-2003, 11:40 AM
If you open IE and go to the "Internet Options" under the tools tab at the top of the main window, you wll get a menu where you can delete the temporary internet files. Look under the "General" tab. If you delete the files here, I believe the file you are concerned with will get considerably smaller. You can also adjust the size that this file is allowed to be before it deletes things automatically.


This is the procedure that I have been using for many months as well as limiting the file size. The other file folders and their contents that reside within the 'temporary internet files' folder remain unchanged. Just for kicks, i'm going to delete some of the recognizable files and go to that web site and see if anything doesn't work. I can always restore them if things go haywire. I'll let you know if anything bad happens.

Brad Schafer
07-11-2003, 6:16 PM
temporary internet files are just that - temporary files that get downloaded to your machine. for example, i'm writing this and have a large number of "emoticons" displayed above ... each of those is a temporary file (in this case, a .GIF).

browsers use temporary disk storage to stash these things - it's essentially disk-based cache. if (in the course of browsing) you happen to hit a page frequently, you'll find that it will load slower the first time (or after you've nuked your temp files) because all the graphics (aka bloat) need to be downloaded in total. once they're in your cache, the browser can load them from cache (without having to pull 'em back over the net).

if you don't like all the space being used, you can control the size of the "cache" via Tools -> Internet Options -> General -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings button (for IE - other browsers provide similar functionality).

sorry for the lecture,

b

Doug Keener
07-11-2003, 10:10 PM
temporary internet files are just that - temporary files that get downloaded to your machine. for example, i'm writing this and have a large number of "emoticons" displayed above ... each of those is a temporary file (in this case, a .GIF).

browsers use temporary disk storage to stash these things - it's essentially disk-based cache. if (in the course of browsing) you happen to hit a page frequently, you'll find that it will load slower the first time (or after you've nuked your temp files) because all the graphics (aka bloat) need to be downloaded in total. once they're in your cache, the browser can load them from cache (without having to pull 'em back over the net).

if you don't like all the space being used, you can control the size of the "cache" via Tools -> Internet Options -> General -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings button (for IE - other browsers provide similar functionality).

sorry for the lecture,

b


Thanks everyone for confirming what I thought was the case. I did discover something that I have never paid any attention to and that is the little box for deleting all offline content. When I check that box then the files in all the other folders within the temporary internet files folder are cleared. I haven't the foggiest idea of why offline content is being stored. I remember reading about how to turn on this mode but I have never done it. Looking at the dates of the files it is not storing anything at this time but it was about 6 months ago. Now I have lots of disk space. :)