Shortcuts Not Deleting from AppData Directories

[ayemac]

I have Vista Ultimate and have been using CCleaner lately to see how it works. For the most part I?m fairly pleased with what it does. However, it does tend to leave remnants and traces accessed material in the following directories ? even after their deleted and flushed from the system.

 

C:\Users\<profile>\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows

C:\Users\<profile>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows

 

Is this something you?re aware of or are working on? I?m a little surprised that it won?t remove these as it seems to do a good job of removing everything else. For what it?s worth, they all look like shortcuts.

[anonymous_user]

You should not delete stuff from C:\Users\<profile>\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows.

 

It contains various stuff like SendTo items, Start Menu items, your current theme, etc.

[Disk4mat]

Can you be a little more specific on the paths? For example, there should not be shortcuts in "C:\Users\<profile>\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows" but there are subfolders that hold shortcuts.

 

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts (Shortcuts to network places/locations)

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent (Recent Items apps, docs, places etc.)

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo (Here are shortcuts that appear in your Send To menu)

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu (Programs menu and subfolders for your start menu)

 

There should not be any shortcuts in this folder: C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows

Subfolders here for temporary CD/DVD burning, Games Explorer, Windows Error Reporting (WER)

 

Hope that helps. If you can provide a few more details as to the files (name, ext & location) I can give you more specific info.

[ayemac]

More specifically, they are shortcuts that reside in the recent items. So to put everyone at ease, they're not directly in the Windows directory but rather the Recent Items within the Windows directory.

 

If I navigate directly to the folder, it's empty - possibly as a result of running CCleaner. However, if I run the search function through Vista (indexed search, I believe), it still shows items in that folder.

 

An example would be a mp3 or wma file that clearly shows as a shortcut in the Recent Items.

 

I've unchecked hidden files and nothing additional shows up.

 

Thoughts? I was thinking CCleaner actually wiped all of this.

[Disk4mat]

If the folder is empty and in the Start menu, Recent Items is empty then CC did its thing. My first thought is that the search indexer hasnt updated the db yet. But only a theory.

 

In my own test I had 96 shortcuts in my recent folder. Search and they are found. Cleaned with CC and searched again - got nothing. I checked the folder and it was clean. My search settings are 'Indexed Locations' with 'Include indexed, hidden' etc

 

Also, I installed the update for WS to bring it to v4.0 on Vista Business edition. Have you installed the update? Thats another theory.

KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157

[ayemac]

I don't know that I've made this clear but after CCleaner has run, the shortcuts do not exist in the directory and do not exist in the Start\Recent Items. So, in that example, CCleaner did its job.

 

Where they do exist is if I pull up Windows Explorer and click in the search field in the top, right-hand corner and then type in something to the effect of *.mp3. It pulls all of my MP3s (as to be expected) but also pulls shortcuts pointing to old material accessed at one time or another that were in the Recent Items directory within the AppData directory.

 

I'm going to side with you that maybe the indexer has updated the DB yet. I haven't looked at the items to see how far back they go - these may only be items from the last day or last week or something.

 

I'll try the patch you sent. You mentione Vista Business yet I have Vista Ultimate, but my assumption is that there's one for all OS versions.

[Disk4mat]

Luckily there is no difference between Business and Ultimate. There is a 32 bit and 64 bit. More than likely you running the 32 bit version. But just in case here are both...

 

Download the 32-bit Windows Vista

Download the 64-bit Windows Vista

 

It is a rather strange problem. I havent been able to reproduce it following the steps you outlined in your last post.

[ayemac]

Disk4mat ~ I believe that was the trick! I loaded the proper update to the search engine and have had no issues.

 

Thanks, my man! (unless you're a woman.)

 

 

Late

[Disk4mat]

Your welcome! Luckily I am a man, otherwise the wife might be disturbed. ROTFL. Happy that worked for you.

 

I just recently discovered something that might also prove useful. I use the instant search alot from the Start menu and noticed that recent items appeared in the results (not the same as your orig prob since the files exist). I figured if I could keep recent items out, I could get more results returned. So here is what I did...

 

Went to: C:\Users\USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows

Right click 'Recent Items' and select properties

Click Advanced, uncheck 'Index this folder for faster searching'

Ok, Apply (select to all files and subfolders)

 

Since its on the same topic I thought I would post that tip for anyone else who uses instant search alot.