hi, just wondered if someone might know the answer to this.

I am reinstalling p3d and fsx after a purchase of a couple of new drives,and after putting several items of scenery back on,I noticed that drive space had increased massively on what I was expecting.

After a bit of searching I found that the cause was files located in my local temp folder in (username)app data. Once I cleaned this out after my programs had been installed and checked they were running ok I manually deleted the files in the temp folder and recovered 85GB of space.

Why does these temp files not automatically delete after the program has installed?

 

cheers

Why does these temp files not automatically delete after the program has installed?

 

This file is used temporarily for installation of new software, Windows Updates, and, when you open up a program, like Outlook, it will run a temporary file there until you close Outlook or Office.  You can safely remove all the files in this folder.  Any files required because you have a program opened, will not be deleted and you will be advised if that occurs.  I delete mine at least once a week.  It should cause a problem with any programs on your system as they are temporary files.  Occasionally they could get corrupted if the program you had running shutdown abnormally.  Very rare though.  If it ever happens, this restart your computer and you can delete everything in that folder.  The Windows Disk Cleanup will remove this files too or any registry cleaner like CCleaner.  I like going in there manually like you have been doing and delete them all.  The only adverse problem I can see if you left them on your system forever, it would eventually take up a lot of disk space and, if you have a small SSD, space might be needed.  There's a Windows/Temp/ directory too that sometimes does not remove everything and needs to be cleaned out once in a while.  I have noticed though with Windows 7, it does a lot better job of cleaning up than Windows XP did.

 

Just think of the millions of people who do not realize there's a temporary directory in your Users/Local folder that is taking up space.  We know but there are many who do not and Windows should have some way of periodically going in there and deleting the files.

 

Best regards,