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Dennis Williamson
Asked: 2009-05-10 15:54:17 +0800 CST

Temp files are being created in root directory in Vista

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I have a user who has some of his temp files being created in the root directory of the C: drive on his Vista notebook.

System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > User Variables for USER NAME > TEMP (and TMP) both show "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp"

Under System Variables, they both point to "c:\windows\temp"

If I go to a cmd prompt and type "echo %USERPROFILE%" I get "c:\Users\USER NAME". Typing "echo %TEMP%" gives "c:\Users\USERNA~1\AppData\Local\Temp" as does "echo %TMP%".

I don't see any problems in other environment variables.

Obviously, this user somehow set his root directory to be writeable.

Any explanation why these files are going there and what to do about it?

windows windows-vista

1 Answers

  1. Just so I'm understanding this, %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp expands into C:\Users\USER NAME\AppData\Local\Temp...which on my Windows 7 Beta install appears to be a valid directory, as well as C:\windows\temp being valid as well.

    Could it be that the culprit is attempting to write to C:\windows\temp, which (usually) requires administrative access? (As I mentioned in the commentary) some programs will attempt to dump their files in the root of the C: drive if they can't reach the temp directory.

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