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Windows 95, 98 and Me have no built-in way to clean out their own garbage.
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technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
D r . G i z m o
Temp files and 'insaine' spam
Jan. 22, 2003
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard
Recently, you wrote about MS Word junk files that can be deleted that are
wasting disk space, but I can't seem to find the article. Can you help me
with this? -- D.C.
The doctor and his altered ego have written about cleaning the Windows temp
folder but not about Microsoft Word's temporary files. Word's temp files are
like the ones that Windows stores in general and can be treated the same
way. Any temporary file or folder can be deleted if the stuff inside it is
more than a day or two old. If Windows needs a particular temporary file or
folder, it will recreate it, so don't worry about deleting something old
that you think Windows might need.
Windows 95, 98 and Me have no built-in way to clean out their own garbage.
It's odd that Windows knows how to get rid of the stuff in the trash but
can't figure out what to do with a far more serious problem, the
ever-burgeoning temp folder. Windows 95, 98 and Me users have to take care
of that themselves. (Windows 2000, NT and XP users might need to do it also,
since the automatic methods in those versions of Windows don't work well
enough.)
There are both simple and sophisticated ways to empty the temp folder. The
simple way? In Windows 95, 98 and Me, just do it yourself. Open the Windows
folder and double click on the Temp folder. Press Ctrl-A to select all the
items (A means "ALL" -- is that neat or what?) and press the Delete key.
Windows might balk at deleting some items. Try deleting things one at a time
if it does that.
The sophisticated way, helpful in Windows 2000, NT and XP, is to use a
utility that empties the temp folder for you. The doctor likes Empty Temp
Folders, a free program from www.danish-shareware.dk/soft/emptemp.
Don't confuse the Windows temp folder with the Internet Explorer temporary
Internet files folder. That's the Web browser's cache folder. It stores
recently viewed images and things like that. You should empty it out every
now and then. Do it from your browser's "options" or "Tools" menu. (All
browsers use a cache, so even if you're not using IE you should clean out
the cache every few weeks.)
Insaine Bonuses Await You Inside. Click here! -- Unsigned spam mail.
The doc has yet to see an "insaine" bonus, but he has seen lots of spam from
people who can't spell. The doctor is reminded of how easy it is to spot
such mail. But why, then, do so many of the doctor's faithful still click
those links? The doc wonders if some things are just not meant to be known.
Dr. Gizmo looks up words in Al Fasoldt's dictionary. You can send a
wordsmith or just a letter to either of them at Technology, Box 4915,
Syracuse, NY 13221. Or send e-mail to afasoldt@twcny.rr.com.
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