Clearing Temporary Internet Files

Can I safely delete all the files in Windows/temporary internet files?
There's subfile entitled Content.IE5.

The usual way to clear your cache:
IE-Tools-Internet Options-Delete Files (in the TIF section)

....Alan
--
Alan Edwards, MS MVP Windows - Internet Explorer
http://dts-l.org/index.html


On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:52:09 -0400, "
wrote:

Can I safely delete all the files in Windows/temporary internet files?
There's subfile entitled Content.IE5.

Just to add emphasis to Alan's advice:

It is *not* OK to directly delete the files and/or folders directly, using
Windows Explorer. Really, the *only* advisable method is to use the
appropriate button in Internet Settings. This is because the Temporary
Internet Files (TIF) system includes an INDEX.DAT file--a database that lets
IE quickly find TIFs, determine how to age them out, etc. When files are
deleted properly, this database is updated. If you just delete the files in
Explorer, the INDEX.DAT file is left with a lot of bad data. (And you
*can't* delete INDEX.DAT while Windows is running.)

The only other acceptable method is to use DELTREE command from pure DOS
prompt (Commmand Prompt Only boot, for instance.) Windows recreates the TIF
system when you reboot after using the DELTREE method. But really, this is
only necessary if Index.dat file corruption is suspected.

(I will note that lots of third-party applications will also delete TIFs,
but I'm not convinced that all of them do it properly.)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User

" wrote in message
...
Can I safely delete all the files in Windows/temporary internet files?
There's subfile entitled Content.IE5.