Solved User Account Files -

[MourningStar]

Attached is a explorer window screen capture of my user account showing a ton of files that I would like to learn what they are and how/why they are there and can they be deleted or should not. All these files have one of these extensions :



.regtrans-ms
or
.TM.blf

-thx

 

[pbcopter]

Have a look at this

Understanding NTUser.dat in Windows 10 - Windows Enterprise Desktop

 

[MourningStar]

^
OK & thx for your reply - but that article was in reference to Windows 10, this forum is Windows 7. However, let us 'assume' it applies to W7 as well. I am the only person using my machine so I will ask this. Why are there a ton of these files? Or do I assume this is common and every Windows 7 user has this situation.

 

[pbcopter]

Do you restart your system often?

Windows 7 is the same, from what I know.

The relevant part of that link, I believe.

"How NTUser.dat Changes

Though user settings, preferences, and so forth change at runtime, NTUser.dat stays static. Rather, those changes go into a raft of .regtrans-ms files that Windows 10 creates. Windows 10 processes these files whenever a user logs out, or the system shuts down or restarts. This controls and manages Registry writes, much like a “database commit” operation."

 

[dg1261]

that article was in reference to Windows 10, this forum is Windows 7. However, let us 'assume' it applies to W7 as well. I am the only person using my machine so I will ask this. Why are there a ton of these files? Or do I assume this is common and every Windows 7 user has this situation.

Does this thread in another forum help? (Disclosure: I contributed to that thread, as well.) That thread was also a Win7 thread, so it's apparent this is normal behavior for Windows.

Personally, I have no qualms about treating them like the temp files in c:\users\{user}\appdata\local\temp\ and c:\windows\temp\ ... that is, I select the whole lot and delete them all. If any are in use, Windows won't let you delete them, so leave those be. But if Windows let's you delete any of them, then they were just abandoned junk no longer in use, anyway.

OTOH, they probably don't amount to much disk space all together, so some may prefer to just ignore the whole issue.

 

[MourningStar]

pbcopter & dg1261 -



Thank you. I do not 'restart' my system very often, but I do start & shutdown daily. True, these files' size in total are negligible and I will move on the side of caution and leave them alone. In fact, I decided to re-configure the entire machine to 'hide' protected files and my user account (and other directories) looks trim and lean now!


out of sight, out of mind