As the title says - is there any software for cleaning the local settings / temp folder? With no installing, not much options, just simple, nice interface with buttons to do what's needed and which wouldn't scare the younger users. Explicitly made for clearing the temp folder? Or maybe there is some command which can be run in cmd ?

It's just that Adobe Shockwave Player has some weird bug. It stores the files in this folder and now i and few other users are experiencing problems with files being used, not found and lot of mess generally which I guess is caused by the files being stored in this folder and not overwriting.

So it's kind a hard situation here.. Disk cleanup does not help in clearing this folder and the ccleaner is very confusing for young users and people not into os.

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Why doesn't Disk Cleanup's "clear temporary files" work? I use it all the time. – Mark Sowul Mar 9 '11 at 20:28
It doesn't clean the contents of folder temp. – Richards Mar 9 '11 at 20:38
%temp% usually refers to a variable,temp, in a batch file but now %temp% refers to regular files on the hard disk – Bill Richardson Jan 24 at 2:39
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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

You really don't need special software to do a straight delete of all files in any folder, this can be done with a simple batch file or from the command line:

del /s /q /f %temp%\*
del /s /q /f %windir%\temp\*

The first will get the current user temp folder, the other will get the system temp folder that some applications like to use.

EDIT: Per request, here is an explanation of the switches used, as found on MS Documentation:

/f : Forces deletion of read-only files.

/s : Deletes specified files from the current directory and all subdirectories. Displays the names of the files as they are being deleted.

/q : Specifies quiet mode. You are not prompted for delete confirmation.

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That's what I was looking for if there is no special software to do that! Thanks! :) – Richards Mar 12 '11 at 13:41
could you explain the /s /q ? – Pacerier Aug 29 '11 at 22:54
@Pacerier, you can get a full explanation of the del command and its switches here: microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/… – MaQleod Aug 29 '11 at 23:08
i mean shouldn't it be like included in the answer? – Pacerier Aug 29 '11 at 23:14
@Pacerier, updated answer to include switch explanations. – MaQleod Aug 29 '11 at 23:25
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Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk clean up does exactly what you want, it will walk you through the whole process. If you want something more in depth CCleaner is a great free program for this. You can also automate both of these with scheduled tasks.

EDIT: Let's document this so you can see that it does clean %Temp%

  • My Temp folder: enter image description here

  • select temp files in disk cleanup:

enter image description here

  • Temp file after clean up, as you can see there are some files left over because they are in use (I'm not actually sure whats up with that debug file from november but I can't delete it manually so I'll have to look at later):

enter image description here

If you are still having issues there might be some other problem with how the program placed the temp file there just like I have with that debug file.

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Disk cleanup does not clean the folder's temp content. It does not! The temp folder I mean can be accessed typing: %temp% in start->run. CCleaner does that, however that's too complicated for non experienced users as i mentioned. – Richards Mar 9 '11 at 20:37
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-1? I guess disk clean up doesn't clear temp files, my bad... xD – Kyle Mar 9 '11 at 20:38
Disk clean up 100% clears temp files let me get some screenshots for you... don't get angry because you don't know how to use it... – Kyle Mar 9 '11 at 20:41
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It doesn't clean up everything, only things older than last login. – Mark Sowul Mar 9 '11 at 20:46
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@richard CCleaner still solves your problem.... – Kyle Mar 9 '11 at 20:53
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You could use a tool like Belvedere. Drop it on a drive, put a shortcut in the Startup folder, and set a few rules. I use it for maintaining my drives.

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