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Temporary Internet Files Use More Disk Space Than Specified

Article ID:301057
Last Review:January 31, 2007
Revision:3.2
This article was previously published under Q301057

SYMPTOMS

You may experience either or both of the following symptoms:
Your Temporary Internet Files folder may use more disk space than you specified in Amount of disk space to use (to locate Amount of disk space to use, click Settings on the General tab of the Internet Options dialog box).
Files that are downloaded from Web sites may remain in your Temporary Internet Files folder (but are not visible in Windows Explorer) after you click Delete Files on the General tab of the Internet Options dialog box, and then click to select the Delete all offline content check box.

NOTE: By design, Windows Explorer uses the Desktop.ini and Index.dat files to provide the functionality of the Temporary Internet Files shell extension. Index.dat is the Internet Explorer cache index file. It facilitates the browser cache mechanism that speeds access to frequently accessed web pages across different browser processes in the same user context.Cookies are also displayed when you view the Temporary Internet Files folder in Windows Explorer, but these files are physically stored in your Cookies folder; this is also by design. For additional information about how to delete cookies, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
278835 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278835/EN-US/) How to Delete Cookie Files

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CAUSE

This problem can occur for any of the following reasons:

The content on a Web page is only partially downloaded (for example, if you click Stop while a page is still being opened, or if you navigate to another page before a page is completely downloaded).You are downloading streaming video with the AxisCamControl ActiveX control (distributed by Axis Communications), which is used to stream live video from a camera.Some of the files in the Temporary Internet Files folder are hidden, used by other processes, or otherwise protected files.

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, move your Temporary Internet Files folder to another location, delete the old folder, and then (if you want to) move your Temporary Internet Files folder back to the original location:
1.In either My Computer or Windows Explorer, create a new folder.
2.In Internet Explorer, click Internet Options on the Tools menu.
3.On the General tab, click Settings under Temporary Internet Files.
4.In the Settings dialog box, click Move Folder under Temporary Internet Files folder.
5.Click the folder that you created in step 1, and then click OK.
6.If you are prompted to log off, click Yes, and then log on to Windows again. If you are not prompted to log off, click OK to close all of the dialog boxes.
7.In either My Computer or Windows Explorer, delete the old Temporary Internet Files folder, and then create a new folder in the same location with the same name.
8.Repeat steps two through six again, but in step five, click to select the new folder that you created in step seven.
NOTE: You must repeat this process when logged on as each user of the computer.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

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APPLIES TO
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 1
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, when used with:
  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
  Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
  Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
  Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
  Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
  Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
  Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition

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Keywords: 
kbenv kbnetwork kbprb KB301057

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