On Feb 3, 4:47Â am, "Man T" wrote:
> XP SP2
> I tried to install SP3 recently but failed. Since then my machine always
> reboot it self every 30 seconds. I booted from CD drive with XP cd went to
> recovery mode and type FIXBOOT.
>
> Now I found out in my second harddisk has several folders with name such as:
> 0ae4089b57e590b744e373
> 2a884b442db579e38084a
> ....etc.
>
> I cannot delete these folders.
> Each of these folders contains dll, exe and inf files, contents of them are
> exactly the same.
> Any idea what are these folders?
When Windows installs things, it may create a temporary folder
consisting of 20-30 random letters and numbers
in the root drive of the volume with the most free space. This
explains why sometimes the folders are on your
C drive or on some other drive - which one has the most free space?
For example you may see a folder called:
D:\9470bb12e8a4f3447657236478e41c5
There may be other folders and files under the main temporary
folder.
These should normally be removed when the installation is complete,
but sometimes they are not. They are harmless
but annoying. You may think something is wrong when there is not or
be afraid the files are really needed. To
avoid confusion you can delete the temporary folders.
You may be able to identify the installation (for curiosity) by
looking at some of the folder contents and decide
if that installation was okay, just delete the files/folders. If the
installation did not work properly for some
reason, running the installation again will just create a new randomly
named temporary folder so the old temporary
folder is really of no use.
Sometimes the folders are stubborn to delete. Even if you are an
Administrator on the system you may get a
"sharing violation", "access denied", "being used" or similar type
message when trying to remove the temporary
folders. Installations sometimes use different permissions than a
regular user with Administrator group might
have.
There are many methods to try to remove the folders and some involve
third party programs to install or changing
certain Windows settings that may compromise your system security if
you don't change them back when you are done.
Booting your system in Safe Mode (pressing the F8 key repeatedly right
before XP tries to load) is a good method
to try and remove the folders since it doesn't involve making any
changes to your system configuration or
downloading any third party programs.
If Safe Mode does not work you can change the security of the folder
to give your user Full Control over the folder
by browsing to it in Explorer, click Tools, Folder Options, View and
in the Advanced settings window, uncheck (at
the bottom) Use simple file sharing (recommended), and click OK. This
turns off the recommended simple file sharing
on your computer so you will want to turn it back on when you are
done.
Right click the stubborn folder, Properties and click the now visible
Security tab. Select your user name and
check the box to allow Full Control, click OK to apply the changes.
Now try to delete the folder.
It is a good idea to go back into Explorer and turn back on (Enable)
Simple file sharing (recommended) when you
have finished.
If none of the above work, try a popular third party tool called
Unlocker.
Unlocker can be download from here:
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
Unlocker can be uninstalled when you are finished using it.
Reboot when you are finished to be sure the annoying folders are
really gone.