Easy Removal of Windows Super Hidden Temp Files

[OperationUndermind]

Maybe someone else has brought this to the table, but I have found a foolproof way of easily accessing and removing these files.
 
On Windows XP I simply right-clicked on my desktop and pointed to "New" and then "Shortcut." I then entered the full path to the elusive "content.ie5" folder (on my particular system: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5) Now anytime I double click this new shortcut icon, the previously hidden and virtually inaccessible folder pops right up. It's a simple matter to then manually Ctrl+A and delete everything in sight. Then simply back up a level and do the same to all the files in "Temporary Internet Files" and another level to the "Temp" directory.
 
Of course, I also have a batch file that runs on startup to do the same thing as many of you probably do, but I thought I'd post this for those who might want to go in and manually do it from time to time.
 
Please post to this thread your experience using this technique.
 
Thanks for reading!
 
:thumbup:
 
operationundermind

[Lead Head]

thats a good idea, and welcome to the forums

[DBX_5]

good idea, but wouldnt it be better and easier way just to stop using IE, or wiping out windows and installing something else? (warning this could be off-topic)

[Pathos]

???

That folder is perfectly accessible from explorer on my machine. The subfolders are all apparently empty. Are the "Super Hidden Temp Files" in theses subfolders or should they be visible?

What would happen if you made it read only?

[Orethrius]

What would happen if you made it read only?

IE throws shitfits trying to save cookies in a locked folder.  Kinda funny, but stupid all at once.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Since Windows XP removes the content from these files anyway when you delete your history and temporary Internet files anyway this doesn't serve any purpose.

However it might be worth while to do this on pre-Windows 2000 systems. By the way if Explorer is running while you try to delete these files it won't work since it's using the files.

[Jenda]

How would this work in win2k? I'm planning to add them to my Ubuntu computer sometime, I even left the first ten gigs on the harddisk free for them.

[OperationUndermind]

Since Windows XP removes the content from these files anyway when you delete your history and temporary Internet files anyway this doesn't serve any purpose.
 
Sorry, no time for love, Dr. Jonez.
 
You are mistaken.
 
These files are NOT deleted.
 
Ever heard of "Content.ie5"?
 
Try looking at the properties of your "Temporary Internet Files" folder. There are folders that DO NOT show up in the icon view (yes, even with "show hidden files" turned on), but that are nonetheless there and storing all your surfing history, site graphics files and even emails you send.
 
Maybe even try a manual delete of everything in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder and looking at the properties of the seemingly "empy" folder again...
 
Those same inaccessible folders are still there and so is all that porn you have been looking at for all these years without doing something about these hundreds of megabytes of breadcrumb, telltale files.
 
So, keep on thinking that these files don't exist or that Windows is actually deleting ALL your internet files and history when you click the "delete files" and "clear history" buttons in internet options.
 
Keep on thinking that I went through the trouble of researching the issue, installing a "cleaner" app in my startup file and posting a message to the forum.
 
Keep on thinking that this is all a hoax and that thousands of other people out there are just paranoid and out of a severe case of boredom go about writing useless apps to delete files that aren't there in some kind of purposeless intellectual exercise. It's your bit-trail buddy, not mine.
 
What I find truly disconcerting is that you appear to be a long time techie who should have known about this issue long ago and that you come across as if you are actually DEFENDING Microsoft's integrity...like you think they don't mislead us, spy on us or collect personally identifying information and track our internet activity? Right.
 
Now, trying to get us to believe that really "doesn't serve any purpose."
 
:nothappy: o p e r a t i o n u n d e r m i n d :nothappy:

[Aloone_Jonez]

I've being arguing this point for a long time, I am not defending Microsoft I'm just being fair to them. These files are no big scam to find out what everyone is looking at on the Internet if they wanted to do that they would've come up something far more devious than this.

On Windows 9x I'm sure the contents of the files still remain after you've deleted your temporary internet files, but with Windows XP the files still remain in place but their contents have gone.

Try this, in your normal user account browse the Internet for anything, and remember some of the websites you've visited. Create annother user account as WMD said and look at the files in Explorer, look at the size of the index files, veiw them with a text editor and you'll see the names of the pages you've visited. Now log off your special account and log back in to your normal account, delete the files the usal way in Internet Explorer. You'l find when you view them with you other account they'll still be there but they'll be a lot smaller and if use a text editor you'll notice all the website names are gone.

This is the case with my machine running XP home edition sp 2 with all the updates installed,  don't know about Windows 2000, but the article is out of date as far as XP goes.

Appendum:
Here's a screenshot of the index.dat files open in notepad, before the deletion is on the left and after is on the right, notice how all the porn sites have gone they've been replaced with a repeating pattern of bytes, the only site left was the MSN (the default homepage in IE).

So for your self I've uploaded my index.dat files, you can view them in a text editor such as notepad, I recommend using the word wrap option.

index.dat before deleting.

index.dat after.

I was wrong about one thing the files are the same size before and after, but the information contained with in them has gone - it's been overwritten.

Of course this doesn't prove anything, I could've easily   faked this, so I urge you to do the same experiment so you can see for yourself.

EDIT:
I forgot to say that Microsoft didn't mean any ill intent by not deleting the files in Windows 9x it was just a bug caused by poor programming.

[Kintaro]

Yep, this is a myth even under Windows 2000, and it is busted.
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101866#post101866

[OperationUndermind]

Thanks for your input, but I'll keep letting my startup batch file delete these files anyway just to be certain.
 
:nothappy: o p e r a t i o n u n d e r m i n d :nothappy:

[piratePenguin]

I forgot to say that Microsoft didn't mean any ill intent by not deleting the files in Windows 9x it was just a bug caused by poor programming.

What about the folders being "really hidden" then? Surely they put alot of effort into doing that.

[Aloone_Jonez]

The folders are hidden because Explorer doesn't read them  the same way as normal folders it treats them as system folders uses the indexing system made up of the index.dat files to read them. When you view the Temporary Internet Files folder you're actually looking at the contents of Content.IE5 DSFSDFSDF, SEWREWR, and WEREWRE, the index.dat files store a list of websites and the  appropiete files for each in the Content.IE5 folder.

[MarathoN]

When you view the Temporary Internet Files folder you're actually looking at the contents of Content.IE5 DSFSDFSDF, SEWREWR, and WEREWRE, the index.dat files store a list of websites and the appropiete files for each in the Content.IE5 folder.

I always thought that was the case, thanks for assuring me that I was correct. :thumbup:

[davidnix71]

Editing the desktop.ini files works fine in 98/ME to unhide ContentIE, but what about anything NT based? (NT,2000,XP). Root-kits take advantage of a "feature" in NT that allows someone to create a file at the root and then hide it from the root.

If M$ really wanted to be devious, they would simply have IE create an accelerated privilege account to store all the info they wanted to have sent home to Bill. Even if YOU knew the info was hidden and where it was hidden, short of 'forcing' the hd open to force overwrite those sectors, or reformatting the hd, you couldn't view or delete it.

I had a Trash-80 a lonnnng time ago. There were commands called peek and poke that allowed you to manually read or write to an address, but even that was ram only.