Firefox downloads to windows-temp but never cleans up!

I got Windows 7 installed on a small 30Gb SSD partition. Whenever firefox downloads a big file, any size file, it stores it in c:\windows\temp\

I watched closely as first the tempdir was 5MB and as soon as I downloaded a file with firefox the directory extends with the size of the downloading file. But when I close firefox or just do "ctrl-shift-del" which should delete all temporary thingies in Firefox. It doesn't remove the temporary files in c:\windows\temp!

PS. the file downloaded gets downloaded to the TEMP directory first then gets copied to the destination directory. Now you have two copies of a file what a waste - I know this can be resolved by disk cleanup, but I don't wnat to run that everytime I stop useing firefox.

I wonder if this is also the case with other programs and why does windows do this to my new SSD?

Tango1 said:

I got Windows 7 installed on a small 30Gb SSD partition....

It would help us to help you if you would fill out your system specs... including the antivirus product that you are using. You can use this link: https://www.sevenforums.com/profile.php?do=extra

Tango1 said:

....Whenever firefox downloads a big file, any size file, it stores it in c:\windows\temp\........

What version of Firefox?
Take a look at this thread:https://www.sevenforums.com/general-d...-download.html Read each post - in particular, post 17 where I state "Applications running under your user account should never write to the Windows\Temp folder."

Tango1 said:

... and why does windows do this to my new SSD?

Assumes facts not in evidence. Prove that it is the Windows OS doing this


I downloaded a 1.1GB file using Firefox 26 (32bit) on a W7 pro 64bit virtual machine (no antivirus installed). The VM started out with 10.4GB free and ended up with 9.24GB free

Well partly it is windows' fault. It sees it deals with an SSD and never suggests to the user to put the pagefile/temp directories/hibernation file elsewhere to avoid Nand-cell wear.

Anyway I will read the links you gave

Tango1 said:

Well partly it is windows' fault. It sees it deals with an SSD and never suggests to the user to put the pagefile/temp directories/hibernation file elsewhere to avoid Nand-cell wear....

Microsoft will probably never make that suggestion to SSD users because I doubt that those in charge of such suggestions can ALL agree that such a suggestion is needed. In other words, not everyone agrees that Nand-cell wear is an issue.

Even if you were to move the Windows Operating System's temp folder, that is no guaranty that applications will use the new location. Years ago, Microsoft's own Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) used to insist on writing to the default folder location. If that default folder was still there, MSE used it. If the folder had been deleted, MSE updates failed. I spent days with MS remotely controlling several computers where MSE would not update. MS tech support never figured out the issue. About a year later, Google lead me to others that had the same issue... and one of those users found the solution.

Today's version of MSE does honor the environmental variable if it points to a non-default location - however, if the new temp folder has not yet been created, then MSE dumps some of its temp files into the root of the the system drive (which I suppose is better than just failing to update). Once the new temp folder has been made by a human or another app, then MSE will use it.

The point of my rambling is to show that programs screw up (including parts of the OS)... but I highly doubt that any part of the OS has anything to do with the file that you are seeing in the OS temp folder during a download. My money is on 3rd party antivirus/security software