documents and settings

[ajmmac]

what would be the effect of deleting the "documents and settings" folder from my hdd--it takes up over 4gb of storage and i never need yo use it--anyone any idea--thanks

[potterfan3]

i bet you use it all the time as it contains the "my documents folder", i wouldn't recomend it

[Ethel]

I bet it has all your internet settings too - your favourites and so on.

Open the folder and see if there are any large files you definitel do not need and delete those.

Long winded, but safe.

[SpyWriter]

If it's got 4 gig stored you must be using it for something ! Why not just look in it and delete what you don't want?

[Ralph]

It also contains your Desktop, application data specific to you, your browser bookmarks and a whole lot more besides.

It also contains a load of temporary files that are probably taking up most of the space you talk about and they can be safely deleted. To do this, go to C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local Settings\Temp. If you can't see the Local Settings folder, go to Tools... Folder Options and on the View tab, make sure the "Show hidden files and folders" button is checked.

You can delete all the files in the Temp folder without any repercussions. If windows won't let you delete one or more, they'll be in use so you'll have to wait until after you reboot.

You can also delete the contents of the Temporary Internet Files but you might want to keep the cookies if you automatically log into some sites (such as this one) 'cos that's what cookies do! Windows will ask you about deleting cookies.

You can also delete the contents of the Temp and Temporary Internet Files folders in every user profile you have in the documents and settings folder.

[vehelpfulguy]

DO NOT DELETE THIS DIRECTORY.

Windows keps all sorts of information in this directory.

Much of it is in hidden folders and files so you probably canot even see it.

IF YOU DELETE I DOUBT YOU COULD EVEN GET INTO WINDOWS AGAIN.

[ajmmac]

thanks to all--i mean i know there are lots of things in there that are important and were no doubt stored elsewhere in previous versions of windows which did not have a "documents and settings" folder--guess i'll just have to plough thru it

[vehelpfulguy]

If you have 4Gb my guess is that you have loads of files in My Documents.

My Documents is one of the folders in Documents and Settings

Do you download lots of songs or movies, these take up a lot of space.

Also note that OTHER users of that machine will also store THEIR files in Documents and Folders (there is one shared Documents and Folders for all users).

If other people log on and use the PC THEY may have files in THEIR My Documents which is not the same as YOUR My Documents.

[ajmmac]

thanks for ur input vhg and i do take ur point--my documents has next to nothing in it--everything i download goes to an alternative specified location--there are six folders with the name administrator in one form or another to distinguish them--although not identical in content most of what is in them is identical--there is an all users folder and an owner folder--again more or less the same content as the admin'r folders--since i am the owner, administrator and the ONLY one who uses this machine there seems to be such uneccessary duplication of so much data resulting in the huge size of the documents and settings folder--i regularly delete temp files folder and temp int files--also have show hidden files checked so i am not missing anything--i'm probably making this sound like a problem but its not--it just seems rather inefficient use of storage in my setup and wondered if there was an option to alter it--ie 1 person who is administator and the only user so no need for all the duplication

[fo3nix]

as the others say, don't delete it.

but, you just seem to want to save some space on your hard drive, so download and run this free program:

http://windirstat.sourceforge.net/

it'll take 10minutes or so to analyse your hard drive, and then give you a nice graph with loads of squares in them, representing files on your hard drive. just by clicking the large ones, you'll be able to see where all your space has gone.