Thank you for your response, Andavari; my reply has been delayed due to unavoidable circumstances.
I followed your suggestions; here is what I found:
C:\TEMP is NOT listed in Options/Custom. There are no specific folders listed there.
However, some time ago I changed the environment variable from the default, c:\documents and settings\, to c:\temp, as it was much easier for me to keep track of things in consideration of the way I have been working with Windows for so many years.
Based on your suggestions, it appears that I need to change that environment variable to something similar to c:\temp but not as vulnerable to cleaners such as CC; or change the way I work; or stop using CC. Would c:\tempx do the trick?
Again, thank you very much for your help. I will keep working on this until I get it resolved.