Deleting INDEX.DAT and Content.IE5

My answer to the question “What do you use on OS X?” is “Nothing.”

The truth is there’s nothing really to do, and some of the products on the market are a cautionary tale in themselves. Most are not written in Cocoa but are just AppleScript wrappers around commands that you could issue for yourself in the Terminal (if you needed to, which you probably don’t). Some even pass your admin password — which they need since they’re invoking commands which would require privilege escalation — insecurely. Some have also been known to delete files you need for the smooth running of OS X. It’s all a bit of an avoidable risk when what’s at best being done is usually unnecessary.

For example, check out this review of one widely-touted product:

http://rixstep.com/4/2/cocktail,01.shtml

My advice would be to leave well alone.

Great show, by the way. You’re one commentator I instinctively feel can be trusted just to say what he thinks.

Hey, thanks for the pointer. A friend and I will most definitely put this to good use.

[...] Deleting INDEX.DAT and Content.IE5 ~ Chris Pirillo [...]

Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/archive/2006/08/04/WinInet-Index-dat.aspx :

So what’s new in IE7? Well the first thing is that IE made the interface for clearing up these files much simpler with “Cover My Tracks”. Under this idea WinInet made a bunch of improvements. The first improvement was in entry deletion. Those of you who remember the FAT file system on DOS might find the concepts behind this problem familiar. In DOS when you delete a file, the file is still around and special tools can undelete them unless some new files have already written over the old files. The way we use to delete entries in the index.dat file was pretty similar, the old URL data was marked free, but was still there, at least until it was overwritten by a new entry. In IE7 we now zero out the entry. Another problem was that some applications (cough Outlook Express cough) would write temporary files, like attachments, into the cache file directory to allow other applications to open them. If the index.dat file didn’t know about the file, we wouldn’t clean it up. Now when you use the “Delete Files…” button we delete everything in the directory regardless of if it’s in index.dat or not. There is one more feature in this area that I should mention even though it is not new. When we attempt to delete an entry from the cache, but can’t delete the actual storage file, we will still remove the entry from index.dat and stick the file on a list of things to periodically try to clean up.

If that doesn’t work, drop me and email because it would be a bug.

I can’t speak about “Microsoft” caring or not, but the team that owns the Content.IE5 directory does care. Last summer I wrote about what we did in IE7 to take care of the issue: http://blogs.msdn.com/wndp/archive/2006/08/04/WinInet-Index-dat.aspx

Here is the relevant section:
“Another problem was that some applications (cough Outlook Express cough) would write temporary files, like attachments, into the cache file directory to allow other applications to open them. If the index.dat file didn’t know about the file, we wouldn’t clean it up. Now when you use the “Delete Files…” button we delete everything in the directory regardless of if it’s in index.dat or not.”

So the answer is to use IE7 -> Tools -> Delete Browing History. I created a Screencast around this topic: http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=931e19c2-ef59-403d-bd14-1af52ed6955a

When I run anti-spyware programs and anti-virus tehy take hours and hours mostly due to the hidden Temporary Files. On a friend’s computer this is the case.. I have deleted the Content.IE5 files under the current user name but there are something like 100,000 files in Content.IE5 temp internet files under a user name he once used but not anymore…..In DOS it will only open the current username folder….How can I access the old user name’s Temporary internet folder\Content.IE5 so I can delete all this ****?

I found today that user name is the same. There are alphanumeric Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 that are not the ten in the directory in DOS. Same user name: Administrator

I found this out because teh following keeps coming back and is found in one of these extra hidden files:
Trojan Horse Downloader.Generic3.QFH I was able to ID the file name. The AVG scanner was taking hours in these unaccessible in DOS temporary Internet\Content.IE5 files. I can’t ID the others because the string at that section can not be viewed while it is scanning. I was able to delete this alphanumeric file in DOS under the directory even though it wasn’t one of ten listed ind irectory. I know there are more, maybe 9, maybe more. How can I locate them? The exe for this trojan must be in there because I can’t find it anywhere.

I also have Win32.Agent.At which keeps coming back, manual removal instructions online use AVG which I use and which isn’t getting rid of it.

People, People!
This has been an issue with me for YEARS! Ever since NT4, I have used powertoys and various “other” methods to stop writing the “temp” files to the HDD with little or no success. Until I found Cleanup!
I cleans up ALL those hard to find directories and hidden folders by magic…naa not really, but it does a GREAT job.
I am an IT tech working within a domain and the userprofiles on the server would fill up so quick that I was deleting a gig a day manually! Now I educate users to run this Cleanup! util as the last thing that they do every day and no more temp files written with the users profile. You see it wants to delete even the index.dat files too, but can’t until log off. So when it’s finished, it even prompts the user “that to completly clean it needs to log you off”. Answer yes and go home for the night, knowing that tomorrows log in will not try to DL 500Mb of temp internet files to the users workstation. It’s a great privacy tool too. Just watch it on server OSs as it cleansup a little too much if all options are selected, and can prevent your desktop showing up! Other than that I highly recommend it.

Lovs2look

EvilHomer decided to show us how to access a hidden music file within Windows XP. Let’s follow along, and see what we discover!   Related Content:Super TweakersI Steal Music!!!What are Easter Eggs?Switching from NapsterLoose Change Treasure MapDeleting INDEX.DAT and Content.IE5New GnomeTomes!Make Windows Look Like OS XDoes This Exist?Real Urge for Music

I’ll try Cleanup.
There’s 1, and more Content.IE5 files like MFCLOBY holding 829 bites. Right clicking offers me 2 options. Open - which it doesn’t and Send to. None of which is the recycle bin.

Do you know of any way to get rid of Windows Media Player?
Do you know how to allow Foobar2000 to be added to the “What Do You Want Windows To Do” window when you insert a CD?
Thank you,
Bill