Routine Maintainence

[Dancing David]

Well,

Today I am at work trying to help someone, who I know had their mail freeze up last week. They had 8,500 items in their mail box, which doesn't make our exchange server very happy. So I asked her how the machine was working, her e-mail is running.Cool. (She had deleted some of her e-mail)

However she has lost printer functioning and can't print to local or network printer.

Well I had looked at her machine last year and knew she had about 5% available free space on her disk. I didn't get a chance to clean her machine last year. (Except to empty the temp files).

Soooo....

Before I check anythin else I decide to clean her machine:
CCleaner cleans 480 MB
ATF cleans 900 MB (Which is strange usually CC gets it all)

So then I run MS Windows Disk Cleanup, and it says that she can gain 9.8 GB of free space from that.

9.8 GB on a forty GB drive. Wow. (On a drive that only has 2GB free)
The machine next to it in her office only had 3.6 GB, which I have seen before. But not 9.8 BG.

I won't even get to finish it before I leave work today (I am logged on remotely and she will be locked out, if I don't stop when I leave)

It just amazes me, I send e-mail often about not clicking on any pop up windows with virus warning, cleant your IE temp files, run disk clean and disk defrag.

Sigh.

Kind of funny, they loose functioning and I look good by just a clouple of mouse clicks.

[geni]

It just amazes me, I send e-mail often about not clicking on any pop up windows with virus warning, cleant your IE temp files, run disk clean and disk defrag.

Probably doesn't help that it could be argued that ony about one of those is worth doing (IE temp files should in theory take care of themselves no?).

[Tumblehome]

There are two types of "temp" files which was confusing to me when I first started larnin' these here com-pew-ter thingies:

1. The Windows Temp folder, where programs create temorary files to be used for the current session only. Programs that create these temp files should also delete them upon closing, but some don't out of laziness or ineptitude or whatever. I'm not aware that it's Windows' job to clean these out. If it is, it doesn't always do its job.

2. Temorary Internet Files, the cache of web pages that you've visited (but only with IE--other browsers set up their cache elsewhere). Browsers never clean these out on their own that I'm aware of; they have to be deleted manually.

[Lensman]

<snip>

2. Temorary Internet Files, the cache of web pages that you've visited (but only with IE--other browsers set up their cache elsewhere). Browsers never clean these out on their own that I'm aware of; they have to be deleted manually.

Not quite:-

[elgarak]

2. Temorary Internet Files, the cache of web pages that you've visited (but only with IE--other browsers set up their cache elsewhere). Browsers never clean these out on their own that I'm aware of; they have to be deleted manually.Nevertheless, the browser should maintain them on its own. The purpose of the cache is to keep often-accessed files locally for faster access, which means that the browser should actively change the cache's content depending on the user's browsing behavior. Furthermore, most browsers limit the size of the cache, so that it will not grow infinitely (I guess they'll check by access date which files to remove when the cache grows too much). A proper maintained cache should not have to be cared for by the user, and cleaning it out typically means a decrease in performance for a while, since now often-accessed files need to be re-downloaded over the 'net.

One of the problems of IE (up to 7, which I still run from time-to-time) that it does not properly maintain its cache (since I commonly find files in "Temporary Internet Files" which are ancient history from a one-time visit to a webpage). I'm also not excluding the possibility that its developers completely misunderstood the purpose of the cache, or had a totally different usage in mind. Nevertheless, a large file that belongs to a webpage I visited once two years ago should not lurk around indefinitely.

[shadron]

2. Temorary Internet Files, the cache of web pages that you've visited (but only with IE--other browsers set up their cache elsewhere). Browsers never clean these out on their own that I'm aware of; they have to be deleted manually.

Yes, of course browsers don't clean them out - cleaning out your cache would defeat the purpose they are there for, to speed up access to static pages. Browsers do, commonly, have cache limits in space and time after which individual files in the cache will be deleted, and they also commonly have buttons which can be used to delete the files therein. In FireFox, the Tools->Options->Privacy->Private data->Clear Now... dialog allows for deleting cache files, as well as Cookies, offline pages, history, passwords and session info. You can also set an option to clear all of these when you log out of the browser.

[Rat]

1. The Windows Temp folder, where programs create temorary files to be used for the current session only. Programs that create these temp files should also delete them upon closing, but some don't out of laziness or ineptitude or whatever. I'm not aware that it's Windows' job to clean these out. If it is, it doesn't always do its job.
And there are at least two of these. There is one at C:\Windows\Temp\ (assuming installation on the C: drive), but it usually doesn't contain that much. Nonetheless, old installers often live in there, and I have seen it grow to more than half a gig. The other is of course in "C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Local Settings\Temp\" (on Vista: "C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp\"), and this I have seen get to more than 20 gig on some machines. I usually just order by date and, assuming the machine has been switched on that day, delete anything older than 24 hours.

[Graham Jackman]

There are two types of "temp" files which was confusing to me when I first started larnin' these here com-pew-ter thingies:

1. The Windows Temp folder, where programs create temorary files to be used for the current session only. Programs that create these temp files should also delete them upon closing, but some don't out of laziness or ineptitude or whatever. I'm not aware that it's Windows' job to clean these out. If it is, it doesn't always do its job.

2. Temorary Internet Files, the cache of web pages that you've visited (but only with IE--other browsers set up their cache elsewhere). Browsers never clean these out on their own that I'm aware of; they have to be deleted manually.

Whenever I come across this problem or if I install the operating system on a new computer, I always go to the browser's Options and set the cache to the minimum size. In XP this used to be 1MB and it was 8MB on the last Vista Installation. I've never noticed any downside to this and it avoids having the cache filled with tens of thousands of small files. The default size of the cache can be enormous, depending on the amount of free space and if it's not cleaned out regularly (or never in most cases) the operating system grinds to a halt.

[Dancing David]

I think that the browser hangup is probably an MS system thing. Most users don't delete the temps, which I have seen cause hang ups and all sorts of bugs. (Maybe the cache is supposed to be cleaned. But I have seen some big ones)

IE6 and less so IE7 can get hung up at times. You have to close the browser window when it freezes.

I work in a grade school setting. There are machines that have never been defragmented. Which considering they are ten years old, is a problem.

Things like that cause some real system slow downs. Just like the machine not ever being restarted, sometimes the configuration files get all wiggy.

But then I know you don't have to clean and defrag all the time either. Just occasionaly.

Windows Diskclean, also compacts files.

But most slows downs are caused by IM packets and things like desktop weather stations. :)

[Tumblehome]

@ Lensman: Thanks for pointing that out, although it seems to defeat the purpose of the cache, as others have pointed out. Is that just in Vista, or in XP too? I haven't used IE in either.

Kind of funny, they lose functioning and I look good by just a clouple of mouse clicks.

:D

That's been my experience, too. I'm no geek by any stretch, but I know the basics of computer maintenance and have recovered the machines of a few friends by simply deleting unnecessary files, cleaning out malware, and defragging. When the computers were back to running almost like new, they were convinced I was a computer guru :cool:. It also didn't hurt that I saved them a hundred bucks or more in servicing.

With two of the computers, the HD was too full for the computer to operate smoothly, both largely because of browser cache files that were never cleaned up, and I mean never because the owners didn't realize they had to do that. Of course, this was in the days of Win 98 and smaller hard drives.

Another computer had been bogged down by a worm. It had almost 1,000 infected files on it, the most I've ever seen.

[Pythra]

And there are at least two of these. There is one at C:\Windows\Temp\ (assuming installation on the C: drive), but it usually doesn't contain that much. Nonetheless, old installers often live in there, and I have seen it grow to more than half a gig. The other is of course in "C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Local Settings\Temp\" (on Vista: "C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp\"), and this I have seen get to more than 20 gig on some machines. I usually just order by date and, assuming the machine has been switched on that day, delete anything older than 24 hours.

Recently, my sister's Dell laptop was behaving extremely badly. It took ages to boot, froze up constantly, couldn't shut itself down, and made pitiful BIOS beeps whenever we tried to help it. It complained of low disk space even though she only used it for university coursework.

After hours of fruitless fiddling and BIOS beeping, we found her C:\Windows\Temp had 30+ gigs of stuff in it! I have no idea what was dumping all these files. The filenames suggested they were all being produced by the same program, but gave no clue to the source and Google wasn't too helpful. We cleared out the temp folder and every problem was solved. I hadn't even realised that low disk space could cause such a meltdown.