What's in the Backups folder??

pikov22

Actually, I can see what's there, but am wondering why PTL creates and populates this folder.

It has two subfolders: one is 2.3G and the other, 3.6G. Do I need them? Will anything bad happen if I delete them?

Thanks.

leonardo

pikov22 wrote
Actually, I can see what's there, but am wondering why PTL creates and populates this folder.

It has two subfolders: one is 2.3G and the other, 3.6G. Do I need them? Will anything bad happen if I delete them?

Do you mean the backup files as in the below Windows Explorer Screen shot?jv16PT_Lite.jpg

If so, these are the BackUps made of your registry and temp file cleaning runs.

If your files are 2.3GB and 3.6GB large this means you had temp files that size that were deleted with a BackUp taken.

In the main menu of Power Tools Lite, click File (upper left corner), click BackUp Tool and the following screen shows you the BackUp files

and provides the option to either 'Restore' or 'Delete' them! Delete is OK if you do not need the BackUps anymore.

pikov22

Yes, although my top folder is named PowerTools Lite.

I have some large files that are definitely not temp files. For example, I have canvas6trial.zip and fmpro41.zip, which are distribution files of trial programs.

Why is PTL making backups of these? Are they perhaps in some temp directory?

Thanks. I'm going to delete both subfolders.

leonardo

pikov22 wrote
..........Why is PTL making backups of these (.zip files)? Are they perhaps in some temp directory?.........

Yes, they must have been in a directory that is considered 'temp' by Power tools Lite. See also http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3799&start=0#p19805

pikov22

Leonardo wrote
pikov22 wrote..........Why is PTL making backups of these (.zip files)? Are they perhaps in some temp directory?.........

Yes, they must have been in a directory that is considered 'temp' by Power tools Lite.

What criteria are used by PTL to determine that a folder is "temp"?

jv16

pikov22 wrote

What criteria are used by PTL to determine that a folder is "temp"?

There are many criteria but if a word "temp" is included in the name of the directory, it's usually a strong indication that it's a temp directory. Also the contents of the directory is analyzed to see if it contains a lot of temp files.

pikov22

I see. That's a little too aggressive for me. PTL thinks that "temp" means "this contains stuff that I really don't want to keep", but I often keep things in temp directories until I get around to them -- and that may be weeks.

redseujac

pikov22 wrote
... but I often keep things in temp directories until I get around to them -- and that may be weeks.

Naturally it's your choice, but it's rather dangerous to do so, I mean keeping such files in your temporary files folder. I think it's much safer to create another folder to save those files to.

pikov22

redseujac wrote
pikov22 wrote... but I often keep things in temp directories until I get around to them -- and that may be weeks.

Naturally it's your choice, but it's rather dangerous to do so, I mean keeping such files in your temporary files folder. I think it's much safer to create another folder to save those files to.

"My" temporary directories are not Windows' temp directories. They are directories I create in non-systems places. PTL should recognize that and at least ask about them.

redseujac

OK. But you'd better not include "temp" or "temporary" in those directory names.

pikov22

redseujac wrote
OK. But you'd better not include "temp" or "temporary" in those directory names.

That's what I mean by PTL being too aggressive. It would be desirable if instead of deleting a folder with "temp" in its name, a folder that lies outside the usual systems folders, PTL would ask -- and remember the answer -- if I wanted the folder deleted.

redseujac

In any case (even apart from jv16 PowerTools) it's not recommended to have directories (outside of the system folders) with temp in their names. It's easy enough to give them another meaningful name.

pikov22

redseujac wrote
In any case (even apart from jv16 PowerTools) it's not recommended to have directories (outside of the system folders) with temp in their names.

Never heard that one before. Where did you get the information?

I've had temp directories of my own on computers since my IMSAI 8080 running CP/M!!

jv16

pikov22 wrote

Never heard that one before. Where did you get the information?

I've had temp directories of my own on computers since my IMSAI 8080 running CP/M!!

He didn't say that it's not good idea to have a temp directories, what he means was that it's not a good idea to have directories named e.g. "temp" which contain other than temp files. This is to avoid any accidental detection and removal of this data as temp data.

redseujac

That's right.

jv16 PowerTools is not the only program searching for "temp" folders outside the system folders and deleting the content if the user is not careful.

pikov22

"It is not recommended to have folders with temp or tmp in their names."

Who is the authority for this? What other programs go outside the systems area to delete temp/tmp directories.

As I was saying, I've been using personal computers using several different OSes for over 25 years and this is the first program I've used that deleted temp/tmp outside the systems area.

Incidentally, the first time I ran PTL, it created a backup area with the aforementioned files and directories, but I never looked at them. The second time, I noticed that I was running out of space in my primary partition, so I looked at what was eating up all the bytes. I found a second PTL backup directory which included all of the files and directories that were already the first PTL backup directory!!

Those two things are enough to make me uninstall PTL.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

redseujac

Why don't you try out jv16 PowerTools 2010, but OK you have to pay for it after the trial period and PTL was free :|

jv16

pikov22 wrote
"It is not recommended to have folders with temp or tmp in their names."

Who is the authority for this?

Common sense. If you have, basically, a folder which name implies "it's ok to delete these files", it shouldn't come to as a great surprise that a program that cleans the system might clean this kind of folders. That being said, this policy has been adjusted to be less aggressive in jv16 PowerTools and the same update will be included to the next build of PowerTools Lite (of which we do not have an estimated release date).

redseujac

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pikov22

You say that you have never named a directory "temp" outside the systems area. I say that I have done that, and have never run into a problem until now.

I have run PCs with CP/M, CP/M-86, Unix, Linux, Solaris, MS-DOS/PCDOS, and all the flavors of WIndows through Windows 7, and have never run into such a "greedy" utility.

So it's really not a common sense issue, but rather a philosophical one. I believe that I should be able to create temp directories outside the systems area AND define what I mean by "temp" -- it could mean "hold these files until I get around to them", rather than "hold these for a very short time". In either case, I should be the one to decide what gets wiped and what is ignored.

I am happy that you will address this in your next release.