re: Question about 'Special folders no longer work like they should'
Sunday, February 19, 2006 at 8:54 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ted Belben
(2 messages posted)
While recently browsing the Internet for information on a spyware issue, McAfee reported
a Trojan had been found in a subdirectory of Content.IE5 (the internet cache). I
tried to delete, quarantine and clean using McAfee, but was unable. For whatever
reason, Microsoft considers the current user folders to be Hidden System folders.
They are listed in the registry as follows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache\Paths\
Since we know these folders exist, along with the location, they can be displayed
using a few simple DOS commands as follows:
The following is a step by step procedure should you be unfamiliar with DOS.
To open a dos window, go to: Start>Run> and type "Cmd" (without quotations) and
Enter
This should open up a dos window in the root directory of C drive. if not in the
root, type:
CD\ and Enter to take you back to the root of C drive
Type:
CD Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\
and press Enter. Note the space between CD and Documents. Also substitute {user
name} with the actual name of your user directory, without braces.
To change the attributes of files and folders which are subdirectories off the Local
Settings, type:
attrib –r -h -s /D /S *.* and Enter.
Note the space between each group of characters (6 spaces total). I suggest –r even
though it may be unnecessary as some files on my computer were read only, (possibly
set by the Trojan). This will turn off the read only attribute if set.
You should now be able to return to Windows Explorer and browse to the Content.IE5
folder and the 4 IE Cache subfolders along with its index.dat and desktop.ini files.
If you wish to continue in DOS, use the following commands in the DOS window.
Type: DIR - and Enter
One of the directories displayed should be Temporary Internet Files
Type: CD Temporary Internet Files and Enter
Type: DIR and Enter
The listing should now include the Content.IE5 Folder
Type: CD Content.IE5 and Enter
Type: DIR and Enter
Assuming the cache is configured for 4 folders in the registry, this will display
the 4 IE Cache folders, along with the Index.dat and desktop.ini files. You can
use the above listed procedures to navigate to the individual folders and file lists
and delete files using the following command:
DEL {filename} Note space between DEL and {filename}
Provided the folder is empty, folders can be deleted by going up one level in the
tree structure and typing:
RD {foldername} Note space between RD and {foldername}
Use caution when deleting files and removing directories using DOS, especially if
using wildcards such as *.*. This will delete all files in the current folder.
Once deleted, files and folders cannot be recovered.
An excellent freeware program, CCleaner (Crap Cleaner), available from:
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
can be used to do this cleanup for you. After you run CCleaner, it tends to leave
the Content.IE5 folder, subfolders and files accessible with Windows Explorer, until
they are reset to System status, possibly on reboot.
Hope this is of some help. It worked for me.
Northern Eagle
On Monday, February 23, 2004 at 1:11 pm, David Whittle wrote:
>I have the same problem as u guys, when i check the properties of Temporary Internet
>Files in Local Settings it tells me there are 26 folders and some 2500 files in
it
>which make up about 1Gb!!! When i look in the folder there is nothing there!
>I have no idea how to get rid of this, i tried to copy the same folder from another
>user but that just gave me some weird error about mapping, very annoying.
>If anyone has any further suggestions as to how get rid of this i would really appreciate
>it.
>
>
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 |  | | |  | re: Question about 'Special folders no longer work like they should' (Ted Belben: Sun, Feb 19, 2006, 8:54 am) |
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