re: Question about 'Using .CAB Files'
Monday, April 18, 2005 at 10:15 am
Posted by Jack Gulley
(5917 messages posted)
Have you ever hear of System Restore? ? ?
It is a feature on Windows ME and Windows XP that allows you to recover from program
install and configuration errors. Or that allows you to set Restore points that you
can back your system up to.
The files in the HIDDEN folder C:\_RESTORE is where all the files used
to provide the System Restore function are kept. (Note the name {underscore}RESTORE.)
The files that might be required to restore the system to a prior point are first
stored into this folder, then later collected and compressed into *.CAB files (to
save space) in the C:\_RESTORE\Archive folder.
Yes, there are a lot of *.CAB files on a Windows ME system and many are critical
and can not be removed. However the ones in the well protected _RESTORE folder are
not necessary if your system is working OK. Because these backup files are critical
for doing a backup to a restore point, they are well protected by the operating system
to prevent Virus and Trojans from damaging them. So you can not directly delete them.
But the system does flush them automatically when the disk space used by them is
needed.
But sometimes if they become corrupted or you have disabled StateManager in the
Startup list, then these files do not get flushed and continue to build. However
there is a well documented way to flush them. For example: Disable System Restore and after
rebooting, enabling System Restore should flush most of them and cause Windows System
Restore to set a new checkpoint and start over backing up changed files.
Your comment on the number of files leads me to think that you might be an AOL
user. Some versions of AOL create an abnormal number of System Restore files because
of their improper use of file names for temporary and state files.
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