2.6 million temp internet files- please help

Hi All, new user here.......

I've had problems with my wife's laptop running excessively slow. The Laptop is an Acer V5 running Win8 x64, IE-10.

After running a scan with Enigmasoft's SpyHunter4, I found that it spent more than 12 hours scanning file:

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

I stopped the scan after 18 hours. At that point it had identified 1.5 million temp files in this folder. When attempting to clean these files, the machine froze solid. It did the same thing multiple times. I tried to manually delete the files also.

It took 3 hours for explorer to discover all 2,656,032 files. Attempting to delete resulted in the same freeze. After several re-boots and attempts at deleting smaller and smaller batches, of which all attempts resulted in the same freeze, I've given up trying to do this myself........ I need help!!

After some research, this seems tobe an inherent problem with IE-10. For now I have disabled it until I can find a solution. She is currently using Chrome to browse.

Sorry, guess I posted this in the wrong forum.......Thank you for moving it to the correct location

You might try a command prompt to remove the files.

labeeman said:

You might try a command prompt to remove the files.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply- I much appreciate it!!

Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that. I know it needs to be done outside the windows environment, but don't know how to get to it or the commands to use it.........

run-administrator-windows-8

This will tell you how to get to a command prompt. I do not think you need to run as administrator.
You will need to change directory to C:/ then change to the path where your temp files are located
C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

CD is the command for change directory.
DEL is the command for removing a file del *.* will remove all files in that directory if you are in the wrong directory and do that command you will do serious damage to Windows and may have to reinstall windows.
Doing a Google search on commands in dos will go a long ways in your task.

Have you tried this:

David Bailey said:

Have you tried this:

View attachment 30816

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply David. Sadly, The Internet Properties menu will not delete files from the System32 directory.... or the Sywow directory for that matter........ I wish I knew why it can't do it.

labeeman said:

run-administrator-windows-8

This will tell you how to get to a command prompt. I do not think you need to run as administrator.
You will need to change directory to C:/ then change to the path where your temp files are located
C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

CD is the command for change directory.
DEL is the command for removing a file del *.* will remove all files in that directory if you are in the wrong directory and do that command you will do serious damage to Windows and may have to reinstall windows.
Doing a Google search on commands in dos will go a long ways in your task.

Click to expand...

Great information Labeeman!! Thank you for the help!!! I will start the learning process right now- will post my results, good or bad......LOL

Have you tried CCleaner ?

Have you tried:

David Bailey said:

Have you tried:

View attachment 30819

Click to expand...

Thank you again for replying David. Disc cleanup would not search in the system32 folder. I can't remember if I used CCleaner on her machine. I regularly use it on my own. I'll have to try it on hers. I will post back............

On a separate (but possibly connected?) note: The machine has been running Spyhunter4 for 26 hours now. It has detected 355 infections. The ones that stand out are the Accoona toolbar and Zedo.com. Her machine is off the network for the time being- All infections will be removed when the scan completes, whenever that may be........ Perhaps one of these infections is what has been denying my ability to delete temp files?

Dude, backup her stuff and wipe the disk and install fresh, you'll thank yourself later.

Open 'Run' dialog, enter 'temp' (without quotes), select all and shift delete; do the same with %temp% and prefetch. May take a while though.

Here's a little freeware from Nirsoft CleanAfterMe - Clean Registry entries and files in your system
I use it every day to keep my system clean. Just download and run