How did they get so big and what are they? 1

[dbushway]

During a recent defrag on a user's machine the log listed files that did not defrag. Among the files listed were two that caught my eye.... both located in \WINNT\TEMP, one GLC66F.tmp and was 3.9GB.. yes I said GB!! and the other was GLCA5F.tmp and it was 5.1GB..... does anyone have any clue as to what these files are and why they are so huge?

I moved them to location on my server that could hold them safely until I figure out if they are needed. Meanwhile I've freed up almost 10GB of harddisk space on a 20GB drive!

 

[longhair]

dbushway,

usually anything in \winnt\temp is safe to trash, we acutally use .bat files to clean it up on users machines throughout the day. could be leftover from downloads or uncompleted software updates. was the machine running any type of av software?

regards,

longhair

 

[dbushway]

Longhair, Thanks for the info.... as far as I know there were no av programs running on this PC. However, the PC is connected to the network and does receive updates from time to time.. could be some kind of file that accumulates them.. but I haven't seen this on any of the others pcs in the office... it just seems pretty odd that they are GB in size...

Thanks again,

Duane

Duane R. Bushway
IT Specialist
US Food and Drug Administation,
Office of the General Counsel

 

[longhair]

dbushway,
if the pc is on a network and has email / i-net access i would seriously consider getting av software on the machine. one machine can cause a boat load of damage. another thing you can try is ms antispyware, spybot, adaware, etc to check the machine out. those temp files could be other things. i'd keep an eye on that pc and see if other files are created in that directory and start growing.

regards,
longhair

 

[karlisi]

Restart your computer before deleting all files in TEMP folder. After restart you can be sure they are unneeded.

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Karlis
ECDL; MCSA