Garbage data generated daily

NBR,
I've been running Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) since release day and have nearly finished tweaking my ASUS F3Sa. After installing drivers and apps the other day, I noticed a new folder began to appear in C:\ each day. The title of the folder is randomized hash. The contents of each folder are two VDM files with randomized hash names. Any idea where these folders are coming from?

Also, IExp0.tmp and IExp1.tmp were created somewhere along the way. Both of these folders are empty. These seem harmless, possibly left over from an install. I'll probably just delete them.

The other folders are more of a concern because they are generated daily at the time I start my notebook. The first day, the folder grew to 1.87Mb. The second day, the next folder grew to 2.05Mb. The third day, the next folder grew to 2.16Mb. Today, the next folder grew to 2.50Mb.

Take a look at the picture. The folders in question are above the red line. Any thoughts?

Jeremy

 

sounds like you have a software that puts that in.

 

Yeah, those aren't part of a vanilla installation. You can either list your install programs and we can narrow it down for ya or use Event viewer to flag the process creating those folders.

 

I wouldn't care much about those temp files/ folders growing.

 

i have similar folders created in C drive too
any help??



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edit

i think i figured that out..
the creation and modification times of these folders match the updates of MS security essentials definitions..
so i guess they are something created by MSSE...
O.P. do you see similar patterns as well?

 

and these folders are impacting your machine how, exactly?

 

waste of hard drive space ... same problem here.

 

the solution is simple. Upgrade to Linux

Edit: If your REALLY want to keep using Windows, try scanning for viruses / spywares etc...

 

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

Thanks, sort of...

My concern was that these folders are generated at each cold boot and that they appear to be growing.

I was running the 32-bit RC of Windows 7 for months without this problem. After thinking more about what program may generate useless data that I did not have installed under the 32-bit version, I have narrowed it down to Infineon's TPM 3.6 driver and applications. Is anyone else running this software? Can you confirm my guess?

Jeremy

 

I don't use the TPM chip on my laptop (disabled in BIOS), and don't have one on my desktop. So I don't use it. I don't have this problem.

 

OK. I have found the culprit. The garbage data is generated every time I update Microsoft Security Essentials. Since I usually update this application immediately after start up (or it updates itself automatically after a cold boot), the folders are being created each day at the beginning of my computer use.

Now the big questions are: 1) What is this data? and 2) Why is it being collected? and 3) How do I stop it?

Any thoughts? Should I begin a new thread to invite Microsoft Security Essentials users to help me track down this problem?

Jeremy

 

Kidding, right?

 

Again, how is this harming your machine?

 

newsposter,
This garbage data is not harming my computer... now. However, if every day for the next month my computer generates 3Mb+ of orphaned install data, I will be sitting on 90Mb+ of wasted hard disk space each month. At this fixed rate, we're talking about 1Gb per year. The problem is a little more complicated because the file size keeps increasing each day (here are the numbers I've observed over the past six days: 1.87Mb, 2.05Mb, 2.16Mb, 2.50Mb, 2.55Mb, 2.58Mb).

Harm: not really. Annoyance: sure.

Jeremy

 

For more information on this see http://social.answers.microsoft.com...e/thread/9ab83631-3adc-459b-acca-fa0259042ffd.

Jeremy