Re: Yikes! Shortcuts from hell. The devil's in my machine!

From: Tom Porterfield (tpporter_at_mvps.org)
Date: 06/11/04 

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 06:35:43 -0400

FlitchGlitch@NOSpamISP.net wrote:
> 1) can I crush (delete) everything in C:Documents and
> Settings\User\Recent? Now and often in the future?

Yes, clear it whenever you want. It just contains shortcuts to files
you recently accessed. Having those shortcuts there will in no way
effect anything else you do on the computer. A shortcut to an old
version of WinZip in your recent folder will not impact an installation
of the latest version of WinZip.

> 2) How do I stop XP from noticing these things and creating shortcuts
> other than when I explicitly tell it to?

TweakUI has a setting to turn this off (so that means it's probably in
the registry somewhere). You can download Tweak UI (one of the Windows
XP PowerToys) from
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp. After
installing, run Tweak UI. On the left select Explorer and on the right
find the setting called "Maintain document history". Remove the check
from that setting and apply your change.

> And while we're at it: What are these little files "thumbnails.db" I
> find all over the place? How do I stop THEM breeding?

Those contain a database of the thumbnail images of the files in that
folder. If you switch your folder view to thumbnail you will see those
images. By creating and storing them in a db file Windows doesn't have
to regenerate those images every time you browse into a folder. Windows
creates the thumbnails.db file the first time you view a folder in
thumbnail view, updating that file when a refresh occurs. If you never
switch to thumbnail view then the file won't be generated. You can
safely delete existing ones, the only impact will be the need for
Windows to regenerate if you want to see thumbnails.

> Are there any other little nasties that I haven't yet found?

Who knows? So far the things you have listed I don't consider to be
nasty at all. 

-- 
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org
Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Yikes! Shortcuts from hell. The devils in my machine!
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