CCleaner keep moving my Temporary Internet Files folder!

Ok I been beating my head trying to find out what has been moving my Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, and History folder. After much troubleshooting I realized the moment I use CCleaner it moves it from C:\Documents and Settings\<profile name>\Local Settings to my Temp folder location that I have set to C:\Temp. This is a CRITICAL bug causing alot of problems with my temp folder and history saving. I am currently going to look search for an old version that DOES NOT break my Temporary Internet Files location.

Windows XP Sp3

Yes I have noticed this too, but I can't reproduce it always. For me, after logout or reboot the folders change back to their normal locations.

Version 3.00.1310 is the latest version without this behavior. I think this problem happens because of the way CCleaner handles Index.dat files when cleaning cookies in newer versions.

Thanks for the info on the latest version I can run safely. Hope they fix it soon. This was driving me nuts thinking I might have some type of malware that I was not able to locate on my system.

I've been using CCleaner going on seven years now and have never noticed it doing that. However I know back in the Win98 era there was some bug either in the operating system itself or Internet Explorer that could randomly cause the locations to change without notice.

Well I checked that.. changed it back.. logged off... it remained.. I even rebooted and it remained.. ran ccleaner and the path was changed to my temp folder.

No one knows what anyone else is doing.

Are you cleaning junk files, or cleaning registry settings ?

%TMP% and %TEMP% are defined by different parts of the registry in XP,

and I am sure that Vista onwards is no less confusing.

Cleaning junk files.

Have you tried disabling Index.dat cleaning? If that's what is speculated to be causing the problem, disabling it should disable the problem and allow you to run all of the other CCleaner options without harm.

No I haven't but will try that and see what the result is.

No I haven't but will try that and see what the result is.

You should also disable 'Cookies' and 'History'. CCleaner deletes most of the Index.dat files when these options are selected.

Exactly the same thing happened to me yesterday. I explained all here http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/987215-temporary-internet-files-gone-weird.html

I used CCleaner to delete TIF and ended up with new TIF, History and Cookies folders in my local settings/temp folder. As if that didn't make things bad enough, (ie Content.ie5 folders in the new Temp TIF folder and the ordinary TIF entries in the old original local settings/TIF folder, the new Temp Cookies file working but the old one not, the new History folder not working while the old one still is)....... like a fool today I used CCeaner to clear cookies to see what would happen. Guess what. Back in Windows Explorer it's all moved around again. Now the old TIF folder is inside the new Temp/Cookies folder. And the new Temp/History folder now has another History file inside it and inside of that is another MSHIST*** file! None of which appear to be working.

And I only deleted my TIF yesterday to see if it would solve a slow shutdown problem.

Can you please let us know which version of IE you are using?

Thanks

I'm using IE8 in XP.

Windows XP SP3 with IE6... Because I only use Firefox with IE Tab.

Windows XP SP3 with IE6... Because I only use Firefox with IE Tab.

Post removed.

Alan MrT has requested posters with this issue give their version of IE.

Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of why this could happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Internet_Files

On Windows XP, the cache is usually located at %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files (where %USERPROFILE% is an environment variable pointing to the root directory of the logged-in user's user profile). However, the cache may be moved by changing a value in the registry. Occasionally an additional (hidden) cache named "Temporary Internet Files" may appear in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Internet Files or in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. This location can only be deleted by manually accessing the folder and removing it.

One scenario that often (albeit not always) leads to the occurrence of this phenomenon proceeds as follows:

  1. User A runs Internet Explorer from his own account, but under the credentials of user B. This is achieved by using the runas command, e.g. runas /user:B iexplore.exe. The functionality of runas is provided and supported by Windows XP Secondary Logon service.
  2. User A quits Internet Explorer and logs out of his account. However, due to a bug in Windows XP, the svchost.exe process that hosts the Secondary Logon service retains the ownership of critical Internet Explorer data files belonging to user B and located in B's profile directories (for example, index.dat file located in %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 directory). For this reason these files remain inaccessible for writing.
  3. User B logs into his account and runs Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is unable to obtain write access to the aforementioned files, which makes it quietly recreate the supporting directories under the current %TEMP% location as a fail-safe measure. The data from the original directories is not copied to the new ones. Internet Explorer will continue to use the directories under %TEMP% until the files at the original location become writable again.

So it's "fail-safe measure" build in IE.

Now I'm not quite sure why CCleaner causes the fail-safe folders to be created, but I think it happens because CCleaner blocks the access to index.dat files when it's wiping them, thus triggering the fail-safe when the system try to gain access to the index.dat files. IE doesn't need to be running for this to happen because the index.dat files are always on use by other components of the system.

Hey thanks TheOdds! That definitely appears to be a darned good explanation of what's been going on. And the 'logging out/in' bit also seems to have a bearing in my case. Perhaps. In that ever since I deleted my TIF and things went pear-shaped, every time I've tried to delete any of these new folders from my Temp folder I am made to log out and log in again for the deletions to take effect. Supposedly take effect because more often than not, but not always, the deleted folders are still there when I log back in. My point is, until this happened I've never ever been logged out and made to log back in after deleting stuff, and at the most been told to restart. But not log out and in again. This is completely new to me. Could it be a sign that my security settings have been changed or something? I was in fact, a few minutes ago, successful in moving my Content.ie5 folders back to their original place and deleting the newly made TIF and Cookies folder from the Temp folder. Even though they both contained index.dat files. Maybe this was because XP took a couple of days to 'right' itself. Now I'm just left with a redundant History folder (containing another History folder containing several MSHIST*** files and all containing their own index.dat files) sitting in my Temp folder. This still doesn't want to budge. I can live with that. I don't think I'll use CCleaner to delete my TIF again though.

Not seeing this at all.. I am running the older version like stated above and I am not seeing this issue at all.. I also noticed when this happened the original temporary internet files is no longer located in the local settings folder so their is not two of them but a single one that has been moved by the new CCleaner. This is a bug in the latest CCleaner that moves temporary internet folders and cookies from the default folders in Windows XP. I only have a single account that I use or ever login to though I do have a backup profile in case of profile corruption than I can login to that unused account. CCleaner v3.00.1310 does not affect the folder location. The moment I use the new version I can view internet properties and find the folder location has been changed to my temp folder, which indicates it's being moved to %Temp% or %Tmp% not sure which as I have both go to C:\Temp to easily keep my temp folders managed easily.

Thanks, we'll look into this.

Just recently downloaded/installed:

CCleaner v3.04.1389

Vista Ultimate/IE9

IE9 installed March 14, 2011

Was using older version of CCleaner and with IE9, it would

not keep me signed-in to websites even though it worked fine

with IE8.

New version keeping me signed in but doesn't clean Temporary

Internet Files and Index.dat in this location:

C:\Users\ -User Account-\AppData\Local\temp\Temporary Internet Files

Cookies,History,TIF were all moved recently, not sure if related to

IE9 or to new version of CCleaner. Old location was here:

C:\Users\ -User Account-\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\

Temporary Internet Files

When you access TIF through Internet Options, everything is deleted,

except for cookies designated to keep:

C:\Users\ -User Account-\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary

Internet Files

Items checked off for cleaning with CCleaner Under:

Internet Explorer heading - everything checked

except saved passwords

Windows Explorer heading - everything checked

System heading - everything checked down to and

including Windows Log Files

Advanced heading - two items: Old Prefetch Data and

Custom Files And Folders.

Let me know what steps to follow to fix.