Temp File Cleanup

[keithmacsd]

My hard drive is 99% full.  My Local Settings file (in Documents and Settings) is nearly 6 GB, of which 1GB is in the Applications Data file, but most of the rest is in a file labelled Temp.  I've deleted the items in that file that have the .tmp file designation, but the rest have other formats, such as all numbers and letters, application names or .dir00.  I don't know whether I can safely delete those or not, even though they're all in a temp file.  The Disk Cleanup utility in Windows XP doesn't identify that temp file as one to delete, but I need to get rid of something. 

[patio]

You need more HDD space...i'm afraid just cleaning out the Temp folders won't be sufficient.
HDD's are pretty reasonable these days.
I'm suprised that machine even runs.
Windows recommends a minimum of 10% free space to operate properly.

[contrex]

but most of the rest is in a file labelled Temp.  I've deleted the items in that file that have the .tmp file designation, but the rest have other formats, such as all numbers and letters, application names or .dir00.  I don't know whether I can safely delete those or not, even though they're all in a temp file.

It's actually a temp folder. Folders contain files and sometimes more folders as well.

Shut down and restart the PC. Open the temp folder in Windows Explorer, choose detail view, which will easily allow you to see the "last modified" dates/times of the files and folders in your temp folder. Click on the date column header to arrange the files & folders in date order. You can delete everything with a date/time earlier than "today", in fact anything earlier than when you turned on the machine this time.

Also clear your recycle bin.

[Merseymike]

Get a portable hard drive and shift a load of stuff over to that - its usually movies and music which take up the space!

[contrex]

He says 99% full. 99% of what, I want to know.

[howellquioc]

My hard drive is 99% full.  My Local Settings file (in Documents and Settings) is nearly 6 GB, of which 1GB is in the Applications Data file, but most of the rest is in a file labelled Temp.  I've deleted the items in that file that have the .tmp file designation, but the rest have other formats, such as all numbers and letters, application names or .dir00.  I don't know whether I can safely delete those or not, even though they're all in a temp file.  The Disk Cleanup utility in Windows XP doesn't identify that temp file as one to delete, but I need to get rid of something. 

try install the registry medic.it is easy to use and it will erase all unnecessary files.

[soybean]

registry medic is a Registry cleaner.  Using a Registry cleaner can yield benefits such as improved performance but it's not going to make a significant difference in freeing up space on the hard drive.

[CBMatt]

it's not going to make a significant difference in freeing up space on the hard drive.

Or any difference at all, really.

Exactly how big is this HDD?  You either need to do some major spring cleaning, or you need a bigger HDD.

[keithmacsd]

Here's an update.  My HDD is 20GB and had only 800MB of free space.  I bought a 500 GB external drive, partitioned it and backed up my entire system to it using Acronis.  Then, after checking to be sure the temp file was there in the backup, I deleted everything in the temp file.  Result: 4.5GB of free space on the C Drive, and everything seems to work properly.  I guess you could say the problem is solved, at least for now.  Thanks for all the input.