How to delete your temporary files on your Windows computer.

How to delete your temporary files on your Windows computer.


Your computer will gather temporary files from normal computer use. Microsoft Word will put some of these files on your computer for the program to work as intended, as will Internet Explorer, other  browsers and other programs.

If you allow these files to build up it will slow your computer down.

I have listed below instructions on how to delete these files.

Alternately, you may want to download CCleaner, a program that will delete these files from your computer by running the application.
Do an Internet Search for CCleaner, download from majorgeeks.com, cnet.com or other website that you (somewhat) trust.

Note:
This will work for Windows 10, 7, Vista and Windows XP

From your Windows desktop:

1 Click your Start menu
2 In Windows 7 (and Vista), key in "cmd", in the search pane just above the round Start menu, and hit your "Enter" key.

In Windows XP, click Start > click "Run", then
key in "cmd" without the quotes, click "OK", or press you
"Enter" key.

Once you are in the "command" screen (or window), 

key in the following:

c:\ del *.tmp /s 

Then hit your "Enter" key

Also Delete everything out of 

c:\windows\temp

Note: you may receive errors on some files as Windows may currently be using them.
This is normal, not all files will be deleted.

WIndows User Profile corruption - Windows 2008 Server, Vista, Windows 7

Windows 2008 user profile got corrupted by perhaps a network problem or unplanned server reboot.

The issue can happen on Vista and Windows 7 as well, you can find the same registry "profilelist" file structure.

When the user attempted to login he was prompted that the profile was bad - the server was inaccessible to his account.
The profile list is in the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

The issue is that there are two SID files of the same name.
One with a .bak extension and one without.

The one without the extension, pointed to:
C:\Users\temp
The .bak SID, pointed to the original user profile, example below:
c:\users\username

example:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-x-xx-xxxxxx...-xxx.bak

The temp profile only had 3 keys as opposed to the 7 keys the former profile had - and still has after removing the .bak extension.
* The final step is to change the state property of the SID set to Zero.

This can happen on Vista and Windows 7 as well!

You can prevent your computer from being inaccessible by creating a second user on the computer in Control Panel > Users, so that you can log in with a good user profile, then edit the other profile.
The issue is rare, and you may never need it - good prevention on the outside chance that you run into this issue.

Repairing corrupted Windows Files SFC - System File Checker

If your Windows Vista® or Windows 7® system files become corrupted and reports errors, you can run the System File Checker Scan to repair the files.

You can run System File Checker on Windows XP, but will not need to run at an elevated command prompt, also instead of Keying in cmd in the Search Box, you will Click Start > Run, then enter cmd.

In order to run the System File Checker and have it to repair the errors, run this at an elevated command prompt.

sfc /scannow

be sure and enter a space between the forward slash and the s in scannow.

To get to the elevated command prompt type in cmd or command in the search box near the bottom of your screen when you click on the Windows® Orb, commonly referred to as the Start Menu.
When you see the cmd, in the search results, right click it and choose Run as Administrator.

If System File Checker cannot repair the file, you can read the log file to find the faulting files.

In order to read the log file to find the faulting files, run the command below.

findstr /C:"[SR] Cannot repair member file" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >sfcdetails.txt

This will show you the corrupt files that it found
Make sure you go to the directory

%windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >sfcdetails.txt

when its done to see the results.


In order to read the .txt file in Vista or Seven, you will need to run Notepad as administrator by going to accessories, then right clicking it and choosing run as administrator.

For more information go to the Microsoft® Support website listed below.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

The log will tell you which files are corrupt, it will not repair them.

To repair the files you would need to extract and copy a good version of the file from the installation disk or run a repair install of Windows.
The repair install would be more apt to correct the problems as it will clean all of the Windows directories and components.
When you put your Windows install media in your CD or DVD drive and restart your computer, you will be prompted if you want to install Windows, you will lose your files if you do that, or perform a repair install, you would want to run the repair install.

You could choose to do a full re-install of Windows® if you have backed up your data and have your hardware drivers or know where to get them.

*Notes:

* Some computers have restore partitions so you may be able to re-install Windows by running a full system restore install.
Be sure and research online to see if your computer has a repair partition. Your computer manufacturer's website would have that information.

* You should back up of your files in case something goes wrong.

* If your computer does not boot to the CD when rebooting with CD or DVD in the proper drive, you may need to edit your BIOS settings and choose the CD or DVD drive as your top level boot drive.

Good Luck with running your Windows Repair, Windows re-install or System restore.

TVF