SOLVED Mysterious folders in my AppData>Local folder

[draceena]

{3771D4C9-BD1C-4330-90D6-9375C076F78F} Created on the 13th
{B5DD2FD3-E59D-4CEA-9CFE-9D36BF78B192} Created on the 14th
{39A7FDA0-96C5-4E0C-ADD8-EBE62946B89E} Created on the 15th

For some reason nothing was created on the 16th and I thought long and hard about what I might have run on these days but had not on the 16th. Since I do not use hundreds of programs everyday, I just started to open the programs I usually use one at a time and monitor the folder for any new wierdly named files to be created.

And guess what?

I think I found the culprit!

When I opened my Windows Live Mail 2011, BAM, a strangely named folder was created right away!

The only odd part is that if I close Live Mail and re-open, another folder is not created and even if I delete all the wierdly named folders and re-open Live Mail, again, no wierdly named folders are created.

It's almost like Live Mail needs to make the folder for some reason then no longer needs it again that day or possibly it may re-create the folder if I restart my computer....hmmm

I'll give that a try next

EDIT: I tried the re-start and still the folder was not created when I opened WLM so maybe I jumped the gun on the possible cause, can anyone else re-create what I did and see if they get the same results?

 

[davehc]

I just a moment ago psoted this in one of the many folding threads:

I do not use folding@home, so cannot speak for that. But the folders/files are temporary files that windows & other programs create because they are needed for certain operations.
When , for example, an antivirus program says an update is available, it is downloaded to the temp folder then installed from there.

But I view it as a bug that they are never deleted, you do it manually or use a program like ccleaner. I logged it as a bug but got no response.
You can hide them (View - "Don't show hidden..etc") but that is purely cosmetic. They still build up.

 

[Zoolx]

Hi there ... im not alone .. thats good to know.

So i have done some investigation also. First of all i wrote already down, taht i have these messages in the log:

"
Fehler 0x80070005 beim Erstellen des bekannten Ordners {f1b32785-6fba-4fcf-9d55-7b8e7f157091} mit dem Pfad "C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local"."

Quelle: Known Folders
Event ID: 1000

Normaly - you dont see these events... so you have to build a seperate eventlog view. I have build one fro the creation time of these strange folders. One Minute before and one minute later. So for example i have build a eventlog view for this date and time:
"KnownFolder_17.01.2011_16.21"

I selected every protocoll (this includes the Known Flders). Seconds before the folder creation time i got this error.

And now i have done even more investigation:
The know folder {f1b32785-6fba-4fcf-9d55-7b8e7f157091} for example depends on the "Windows Search" Service and wants to create something in App\Local\.

This you can read here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb882665.aspx

Even more i read somewhere else, that Windows search is writing some informations only once a day or e ceond time, but not more. So here we have matching too.

The idea with MSN (Messenger Live) i have not tested allready. But it could also be, because i have installed Windows Live Essentials at 10.12.2010.

The first folder i got was this one {CF362A38-4CD2-4852-B2AA-6F8B8E498C47}.
Its excactly the nex day. Usually the folders are created the next day (after some time or next week day perhaps).

But something must be wrong here (Know Folders) because i have the same System at work without this problem.

So ... thats all i know at the moment....
Lets do even more investigation on this

.Zool.

 

[Nibiru2012]

These mysterious little folders use hardly any disk space at all. Very insignificant and therefore I don't worry about them. Most don't even qualify as a drop in the bucket really.

 

[Hadron]

I'm also having the same problem on my computers.
I think this is a real concern regardless of the size of the folders.

The folders are empty. But nothing should be writing to the AppData\Local folder. I think whatever is doing it is also writing to the AppData\Local\Temp folder.

 

[Zoolx]

Good morning

Known Folders. It seams that even if the time is exactly the same it must not have something to do with the mysterious folders at all because we have the known folders errors on different machines without the folder creation problem. So i try to not forget this but i hope that Windows Live is the problem in my case.

@draceena: i cant remeber that i have installed windows live MAIL.
Normaly i only install MSN only.

best regards
.Zool.

 

[bbryanlee]

Appdata/Local

Hello,

I just bought a Dell laptop w/ Win 7 Home Basic 64bit. I installed my SOME of my applications (i.e google chrome) and saw 40gb disappear from my HDD space. After alot of restoration thinking that I might have screwed up something during installation I found out that this folder appdata/local has my missing disc space.

I tried deleting it's contents and left those important windows files in it but everytime I install something some mysterious files gets generated in there. BTW, I checked each folder's disc space in drive c: and it led me to this folder, but when I get in to the folder the folder's disc space is at 40-50gb but none of the files/folders in it add up to that amount.

Please help. Not sure if this is caused by a virus or there's soething I need to adjust. Thanks in advance!

 

[Hadron]

Do any of you guys having this mysterious problem have Acronis installed?

 

[clifford_cooley]

I don't have this problem or Acronis but I do have DiscWizard installed, which is Seagates version of Acronis.

 

[Zoolx]

Hi ...

i dont have Acronis installed on my Systems. Even DiscWizard is not on my Systems. Sorry. But at the moment i belive it must have something to do with MSN. I cant tell you why but it was installed one day befor the folder thing starts. But also a lot of other programs. Perhaps i can figure out this ... i will post a list of all aplicatiosn which where installed a day before the magic began.

The other thing i see on my computer at work is, that all the empfty folders are normaly written to the C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp folder insted. Here i also have a folder every day. The funny thing is.... In this folder i have always two files created at the same time...

Look at this:

The apllicatiosn are nearly the same as i have at home. But here the folders are written to the TMP Folder as it should be ...

Can anybody try the MSN stuff (z.B. with msconfig)

best regards

.Zool.

 

[lalittle]

I'm seeing this issue as well, which led me to finding this thread.

I get one or two of these folders per day, and like others have posted, I'm seeing some evidence that this is somehow related to Windows Live Mail. The first one of these mysterious folders appeared 4 minutes after my Windows Live Mail program folders were created, which seems like it would line up with just about the time WLM was first run. More evidence of this is the fact that several of the folders under "AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail," such as the "Calendars" folder and all of the "Your Feeds" folders and subfolders were all created at the EXACT same time that the first one of these mystery folders was created. That's just too much of a coincidence -- it seems clear that WLM is directly linked to the creation of these mystery folders.

I checked a second system, and I see similar folders on that system, but they're all in the AppData\Local\Temp folder rather than directly in AppData\Local. As a recent post above said, it seems like these folders are folders that "should" be placed in the "AppData\Local\Temp" folder, but are placed in AppData\Local instead for some reason.

Thanks for any further information on this,

Larry

 

[Zoolx]

Thanks to "lalittle" it seams to be Windows Live....

Now the big problem will be to figure out what is different on all our systems. Why is MSN not able to write in the Temp folder. As i write in an old post i thought it had something to do with the "Known Folders" problem. But it has not because i have the same strange known folders stuff on my system at work with folders in Local\TEMP.

As i know i normaly only install the MSN without Mail and all the other stuff ...

Perhpas we can find soemthing in the registry about the Windows Live stuff:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\

I will try to find something here.

regards
.Zool.

 

[Hadron]

I don't have Windows Live Mail installed on my computers, and never have had.

The only application from the Windows Live Essentials suite that I have installed is Windows Live Messenger which is a resident app and more likely to cause this problem than a non-resident app such as an email program.

 

[brkkab123]

No Acronis anything installed here.

 

[lalittle]

I don't have Windows Live Mail installed on my computers, and never have had.

The only application from the Windows Live Essentials suite that I have installed is Windows Live Messenger which is a resident app and more likely to cause this problem than a non-resident app such as an email program.

If it's not related to Windows Live Mail, then it's at least related to Windows Live, but it's not specific to Windows Live Messenger because I did not install Windows Live Messenger. In my case, Windows Live Mail is the only Windows Live application that I have installed, so it's starting to look like it's a "Windows Live" issue even if it's not specific to any specific component of WL.

I don't have acronis installed either. This is actually a VERY clean system. It started creating these folders before there was much of anything installed.

Larry

 

[lalittle]

I don't yet have one of these folders for Jan 20 yet (the last was from the 19th), so I'm going to do an experiment and see if I can remember to NOT open WLM until after midnight tonight. I want to see if this prevents a mystery folder from being created on today's date. This will further indicate that it's a WL issue -- not that we really need more indication of this given the folder creation dates I pointed out.

Regarding folder creation dates, my "Windows Live" folder (i.e. without the "Mail") was created at the exact same time that the first mystery folder appeared as well, so these definitely appear to be "Windows Live" folders. The only question is why they appear to be being put into the "Local" folder on some systems, and the "Local\Temp" folder on others.

Has anybody had any luck finding a way of asking Microsoft (or the Windows Live team) about this?

Larry

 

[Hadron]

If it's not related to Windows Live Mail, then it's at least related to Windows Live, but it's not specific to Windows Live Messenger because I did not install Windows Live Messenger. In my case, Windows Live Mail is the only Windows Live application that I have installed, so it's starting to look like it's a "Windows Live" issue even if it's not specific to any specific component of WL.

Larry

Larry. I am confused.
You talk of Windows Live Mail, Windows Live and Windows Live Messenger.

I know what Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger are, but what is Windows Live?

As I said earlier. I only have Windows Live Messenger installed.

 

[lalittle]

Larry. I am confused.
You talk of Windows Live Mail, Windows Live and Windows Live Messenger.

I know what Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger are, but what is Windows Live?

As I said earlier. I only have Windows Live Messenger installed.

By "Windows Live," I'm referring to the whole "Windows Live Essentials" suite of apps which includes WL Mail and WL Messenger, along with several other apps. Since you installed WL Messenger but NOT WL Mail, and since I only installed WL Mail and not WL Messenger, my thinking is that this is a general "Windows Live Essentials" issue, and not specifically linked to the actual "Mail" or "Messenger" apps -- i.e. installing EITHER of these WL apps can lead to this issue.

When you first install WL Mail, it creates both "Windows Live" and "Windows Live Mail" folders in the AppData\Local folder. I'm guessing that you might have a "Windows Live Messenger" and a "Windows Live" folder in your AppData\Local folder.

Larry

 

[clifford_cooley]

I'm still not convinced.

I have Windows Live Mail installed, the only app from Windows Live Essentials package. All of the temporary folders are going to my temp Folder.

There seems to be another factor that has not been uncovered.

 

[Hadron]

Thanks for explaining Larry.
I will check those folders when I get home.

I may even disable Windows Live Messenger from starting up for a couple of days as a test.