IExplorer - Hidden Files - did you know that?

[samiam]

If this has been covered before, I apologize in advance.

I use shortcuts to check on the window cookies and IEContent folders because the Internet Tools delete files doesn't delete much.
I still use the win95 powertoys on win98SE and one of them is Content. When you right-click on a folder and choose content, it shows what's in it.
One day, for some reason I don't remember, I did this on the
C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
folder, after I had just cleaned it out and only left the AT cookie, and there was all kind of crap in it. So I looked at the supposedly empty four sub-folders and they were NOT empty.
I did right click-properties on the IE5content folder and it was many Megabytes. I deleted the four subfolders and recovered a significant amount of my hdd.

So now I check regularly and if they start filling up I just delete the four sub-folders again. They are created again when you use IExplorer.

I'm curious to know if anyone else has noticed this? or is this old news?

 

[AndyHui]

IE has a very odd way of addressing its cache.

Because of the way FAT(32) works, performance is significantly degraded once you have several thousand files in a single directory. In order to speed up perfomance, IE splits the cache up into 4 (up to 8) different directories, and makes Windows Explorer view it as if it were a single monolithic directory.

A lot of the time when you try to clear then cache, stuff is left begind (as you have found). Make sure you place the check mark next to "Delete Offline Content". The Clear Internet Temporary Files function doesn't seem to work on files which have attributes other than the Archive attribute (ie doesn't work for read only and hidden files).

 

[samiam]

AndyHui-
Thanks for the tip, for some reason I thought checking that box might have something to do with offline opening of the complete web pages I've saved.

And thanks for the link to the FAQ - I didn't know it existed.