Deleting *.TMP files

Karen Davis ^ | 02/02/21 | Karen Davis

[Cobra64]

My husband gave me a new computer (Dell Dimension 2100, 1.1ghz w/ 30gb DASD) for my birthday. He said that I should do "housekeeping" on the hard drive to keep "crap off the hard drive." Can I delete ALL of the .TMP files on my hard drive? I regularly delete "Windows Internet Temporary files" but have not deleted the *.TMP files in the Windows folder. Is there risk?

[Keith in Iowa]

*.tmp files can be deleted safely.

[mamelukesabre]

Also delete cookies by choosing: *@* files

[BiffSchneider]

You should be able to delete all of the .tmp files in c:\windows\temp without problem. In fact, you should be able to delete everything in that folder.

However, to be on the safe side, move them to another folder or put them in a .zip file first (deleting the originals). If there's a problem, put them back. If, after a while, there isn't a problem, delete the folder you made.

But, since that's where programs store files that they don't expect to be saved, it should be OK.

BTW, deleting the Temp Internet Files doesn't fully work. IE still stores a database file containing information on sites visited, and the delete temp int. files option in IE doesn't delete that database file.