[xico]

I'm trying to scrub my hard disk clean. I've defragd, I've run a thorough scan disk, I've run clean disk. (My Os is Win98SE), run Cleanup Batch, and now I'm gone into Find/Files or Folders with the temp and bak files. (I've only got 2.5GB left out of a 40GB Drive--so I'm looking for freeing up space) And I've got a bunch of xDB10B5 (1.49 internet log Temp files), xDB1174 (1.14 ) xDBC191, etc.

What do these do? And is it safe to delete them? There's an awful lot of space there, but I don't want to free up so much that it won't run.
Can anyone give me a little info. I'll bet there's 3 or 4 GBs being used up, and if these files aren't necessary . . .

[walkeriam]

I don't know the answer to your question about those files but you can go to START, FIND, FILES and FOLDERS and type in where it says NAMED *.tmp,~*.*,*.chk . Make sure it is looking in C: drive. Once it stops searching, you can go to EDIT, SELECT ALL then FILE, DELETE. This will put all those files in your recycle bin. If your computer works properly after that (which it should) you can empty your recycle bin to gain drive space.

[WhitPhil]

The folder Internet Logs is created by ZoneAlarm.

BTW From Explorer, go to Tools > Folder Options > View tab and ensure that you have "Show All Files" selected, and UNselect "Hide File Extensions for Known File Types".

Now, under that folder you will normally find a LDB file, named after your computer name, and a lamdb.rdb file. These are the ZA main files.
You may also find a Backup.rdb file, tvdebug.log and ZAlog.txt file.

The latter is logging all ZA alerts, if you have this selected and can be removed it not needed.
TvDebug.log file can be deleted. If you don't do this periodically, this file will continually grow larger.

I have also found that over time, the RDB and LDB files also grow over time. So, periodically I restart to DOS/Safe mode, rename the files and reboot. ZA then rebuilds these files. After a couple of days, ensuring that all is well, I delete the 2 renamed files.

[xico]

Thank you Whitphil and Walkeriam! Absolutely great! Thank you.

[GoJoAGoGo]

I use a Disk Cleaner weekly and have no problem deleting all the Temporary Internet Files that are found.

[xico]

Thank you, GoJo! I like your testament to the incredible usefulness of this site. It's truly a goldmine of information that is right on target!

[xico]

Gojo, I have to add that I've used the disk cleaner, but that doesn't do a thorough job. The former editor in chief of Windows Mag has a web site (www.langa.com) where he has this little app that cleans up the batch files, plus instructions for extra cleanups.

Scrub Your
Hard Drive Clean!
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These free files are part of a detailed series of articles on system maintenance; as the series progresses, these files are being enhanced, improved, and extended. Read the free LangaList Newsletter for details and to be sure you get the next versions as soon as they become available!

All files are fully documented in accompanying articles, and/or in internal comments you can read with any text editor, such as Notepad. Please read all notes, instructions, and precautions about these files before running them. These files have been run successfully on tens of thousands of systems, but it is your responsibility to ensure that these files are OK to run on your specific system.

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3)WipeTIF.Bat Completely Erase All Temp Internet Files (More thorough cleanup: Compact your Cookies Index, and completely erase Everything in your "Temporary Internet Files" area!)

4) CleanALL.Bat: More Power! (Combines the power of Cleanup.Bat AND WipeTIF.Bat for truly awesome cleaning! Scrubs your Temp and Tmp areas, erases all Temporary Internet Files, and compacts your Cookies Index!)

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This page is at www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm

I've only done the novice clean up, but he also says "Click on Start/Find/Files and Folders, and in the "named" box, type "*.tmp, *.bak" (but omit the quotes). Set the "Look in" pull down list to C:\ or "Local Hard Drives," and enable the "include subfolders" option. Then click "Find Now".

Believe me, I thought I had cleaned everything up. What a surprise! That's why I was wondering what in the world I was getting into.
Anyway, thanks for the info. These programs must keep writing new files.

[WhitPhil]

Just to clarify

Internet Logs and Temporary Internet Files are not related whatsoever.

The former are ZA files and the latter is the IE browser cache.

BTW If you are finding TMP files under the Windows directory that start with FFF and have a long file name, these are created by MDM.
You can stop this by UNselecting MDM in MsConfig.

[GoJoAGoGo]

xico:

I'm glad you like and agree with my testament. Thanks for the Langa website link. It should provide me added information on Disk Cleaning.

[xico]

Thank you, Whitphil. That's an important piece of information. Thank you.

[pgriffet]

http://www.purgeie.com

very interesting site about IE cache and history, and they have a shareware which allows to handle cache, cookies and history.

[xico]

Thanks. I'm headed over that way right now.

[ATHiker95]

Originally Posted by WhitPhil

The folder Internet Logs is created by ZoneAlarm.

BTW From Explorer, go to Tools > Folder Options > View tab and ensure that you have "Show All Files" selected, and UNselect "Hide File Extensions for Known File Types".

Now, under that folder you will normally find a LDB file, named after your computer name, and a lamdb.rdb file. These are the ZA main files.
You may also find a Backup.rdb file, tvdebug.log and ZAlog.txt file.

The latter is logging all ZA alerts, if you have this selected and can be removed it not needed.
TvDebug.log file can be deleted. If you don't do this periodically, this file will continually grow larger.

I have also found that over time, the RDB and LDB files also grow over time. So, periodically I restart to DOS/Safe mode, rename the files and reboot. ZA then rebuilds these files. After a couple of days, ensuring that all is well, I delete the 2 renamed files.

You say the Internet Log folder is created by Zone Alarms but I have Hotsynch files for my Palm Pilot in there (extension is .dmp.zip) that are quite large - about 10 of them each holding between 15-60mb) and I also have Retrospect Express(my backup software) .dmp.zip files in there. The Iamdb.rb file you mention as a Zone Alarm file is a Retrospect Express file on my system (XP Home) or so it says under the Type column. The Backup.rdb file is also a Retrospect Express file. I'm not sure what is contained in tvdebug.log as when I try to open it, it says it is in use. Do you know anything about these hotsynch files? They're listed like this - HOTSYNC_2nd_2004_11_14_11_56_45.dmp.zip Would they be safe to dump?

Thanks,
Mark

[Deke40]

I gain a lot of space by periodically deleting the Recycle Bin from DOS and also the C:\Windows\Tempoary Internet File\Content.IE5 by right clicking it and deleting it. When you delete it form the recycle bin you will get a pop up saying it can't be deleted, just close the popup out and close the recycle bin and it will be gone. The .IE5 will recreate itself.

The Recycle Bin can get real big even when it show empty. Just right click it and look under properties and see the size of it. Do the same to the Content.IE5.

The batch files you mentioned probably do a lot of this but I just do them manually for a quick gain in resources.

Recycle bin command in DOS:

Deltree c:\Recycled

[WhitPhil]

Originally Posted by ATHiker95

You say the Internet Log folder is created by Zone Alarms but I have Hotsynch files for my Palm Pilot in there (extension is .dmp.zip) that are quite large - about 10 of them each holding between 15-60mb) and I also have Retrospect Express(my backup software) .dmp.zip files in there. The Iamdb.rb file you mention as a Zone Alarm file is a Retrospect Express file on my system (XP Home) or so it says under the Type column. The Backup.rdb file is also a Retrospect Express file. I'm not sure what is contained in tvdebug.log as when I try to open it, it says it is in use. Do you know anything about these hotsynch files? They're listed like this - HOTSYNC_2nd_2004_11_14_11_56_45.dmp.zip Would they be safe to dump?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark:
I'm not familiar with HotSyching to a Palm Pilot, but somewhere along the way the Hot Sync has managed to get itself asssociated with ZA's folder.

The RDB and LDB files ARE ZA's control files.

Your product, Retrospect Express, also uses these extensions and when it was installed has these associated with it. This ONLY means that if you double click on a RDB/LDB file RetroExpress will attempt to open it. In the case of the ZA files, it will be unable to.

As to whether you can delete these sync files, I have no idea. I would "think" that you could, since once a sync is complete, the 2 systems have the same files. You may wish to just move these files to another folder for a few days to ensure that all is well.

Also, before and after you do the next sync check this folder to see what sync files appear.

As I said above, the Tvdebug file just continues to get larger and larger and needs to be periodically deleted, either in safe mode or via the autoexec file.