Hi Mike

Thanks for responding :-) . . . but as I said I just don't have Mdm.exe
anywhere--not in the task manager, not on the startup tab of msconfig, not
in the registry, not in the startup folder, not on any of my three hard
drives. Two full searches have come up empty and I do have all hidden files
visible (because I like to delete the old bloated Thumbs.db's whenever I
prune the contents of image folders). "Show hidden files and folders" is
ticked and "Hide protected operating system files" is unchecked. I've never
installed Office 2000--only have Word 97 and Works 4.0.3.458. I don't have
VisualStudio whatever that is--but . . . I do have the PowerPoint Viewer
version 11.0.5703.0 and four new fff files in my Windows folder with today's
date on them (powered up twice).

Of the hundreds of fff files I've removed from the Windows folder (but
haven't permanently deleted) two are dated a few minutes after I installed
the PPViewer on January 18. All of the others began appearing April 19 and
are continuing to be created even today (I did receive a PowerPoint
presentation as an attachment from a relative on April 7th--don't know when
I viewed it though). But I do not have the Mdm.exe program anywhere on my
computer, honest!--unless it's part of PPTVIEW.EXE? Should I maybe
uninstall the PPV and see if the fff's go away? If Mdm.exe is the only
program that creates those files then something baffling is going on!

carol


"Mike M" wrote in message
...
The fff temp files are not created by Word nor do they have anything to do
with the useless FindFast or Acrobat.

It appears that you may have Microsoft's Machine Debug Manager (mdm.exe)
loading at startup. MDM is installed by default when you install MS
Office and perhaps also by VisualStudio. If you don't need MDM to debug
script problems then I would recommend a) killing mdm.exe in the Task
Manager, b) removing mdm.exe from Startup in MSConfig, c) in Internet
Explorer, go Tools | Internet Options | Advanced and make certain that
"Disable script debugging" is checked in the "Browsing" section, and d)
renaming mdm.exe to something like mdm.old. This can be a pretty
persistent little program and unless one renames the file you will find it
added to startup again behind your back - for example when adding a
service pack to O2K.

Once you have killed mdm you can delete all the fff??????{?????}.tmp files
it will have created in your ..\windows folder.

See also MS KB Q221438 - "OFF2000: Files Whose Name Begins with "fff"
Appear in Windows Folder"
(http://support.microsoft.com/support...Q221/4/38.ASP).

Look again for mdm.exe making sure first that you have enabled the viewing
of all hidden files (Folder Options | View, two places).
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



caroloyl wrote:

Hi Good Folk! So glad you're still here ))

I see this has been addressed very recently but I've a new twist:

Yesterday--while removing a puzzle file I'd erroneously saved in the
Windows folder (I'd made it from a desktop wallpaper '-)--I found
three hundred and forty eight empty "fff {...}.tmp" files in there.
I was shocked!

I vaguely remembered reading something about them before so did some
Googling and visited MS for the poop about Word 2000 being their
creator and details for putting an end to the glitch. But, but, but
. . . and here's the twist . . . I don't have Word 2000
installed--in fact, I've never had it! I have Word 97 which I
installed last January 17 on the heels of a new hard drive--and a
computer-wide search for the culprit Mdm.exe file comes up empty!
There's no entry for it in msconfig and no entry in the registry
under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr ent
Version\RunServices to delete. I've disabled 97's Find Fast (through
the Control Panel); disabled script debugging in IE; disabled
PCHealth by way of msconfig (and also disabled its scheduled task);
and I deleted all the hundreds of fff tmps--but each boot still gets
me two fresh ones :-(

I did notice, however, that the first instance of an fff tmp was dated
April 19th--the day after I installed an updated version (6.0.1.1091)
of the Acrobat Reader (I keep records '-). Is it possible that
AcroRd32 is creating the fff files???

Insights, ideas much appreciated :-)