There is a Windows “temporary” folder (not the “temporary internet files”). What is this and should any items ever be deleted?
Generally, “temporary” folders in Windows are cleaned up automatically – most applications will look for the definition of a TEMP or TMP environment variable. The location specified there is used to dump garbage, interim files, caches, and so on one and so forth (most zip extractors, for instance, will extract files to the TMP/TEMP directory temporarily for previewing). A lot of cleanup utilities (such as Norton’s CleanSweep) will automatically clean up files within this directory (along with some other ephemera scattered around your drive). Generally, you /can/ delete the files within TMP directories manually – if a file is still in use, Windows will usually say “nuh uh!” and stop the delete operation (in which case, close out of any open programs, and try the deletion again).
