A Strange "c" File with No Extension Keeps Appearing After Deletion but Not After Renaming It

dacrone said:

yeah its just used for logs during major revisions/upgrades

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Interesting, and useful information actually...Oddly though, my setupact.log is placed in C:\Windows\setupact.log rather than the dir C:\Windows\Panther\Setupact.log. Installation has been successful, while viewing the log file. I'm sure this is because the version of windows is different however (i.e. Windows 10/ Windows 11).

@dacrone Ha Ha, that was my next question for you actually....what your thought on the matter is. I've seen your posts in the past before I became a member of 11forum while looking and learning more about Windows, scripting, etc. However, That is odd for sure....I have 23H2 installed, but now have new features installed that are of 24H2. Could this then be a precursor that my PC is going to update to 24H2 soon then, in your opinion? EDIT: And is this "c" file a precursor maybe for targeted machines (Not targeted by Malware, though)? I agree with the fact that I'm second guessing this "c" file, however I'm still not sure of the c file. Any ideas on how or if it relates to MS? I also have several mods running on my system - but wonder how many of us here on this thread have the C file, and mods installed?

bn40400 said:

@dacrone Ha Ha, that was my next question for you actually....what your thought on the matter is. I've seen your posts in the past before I became a member of 11forum while looking and learning more about Windows, scripting, etc. However, That is odd for sure....I have 23H2 installed, but now have new features installed that are of 24H2. Could this then be a precursor that my PC is going to update to 24H2 soon then, in your opinion? And is this "c" file a precursor maybe for targeted machines (Not targeted by Malware, though)?

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now that is odd. I'll have to root around the net for a bit regarding this... my 23h2 (this rig) is fully up to date (as in i installed any/all updates EXCEPT 24h2) prior to my last post, and i still don't have the labels on the context menu. I've had the 24h2 optional update showing for quite a while now but refuse to install it... actually just hid it when i just ran those other updates lol. tired of seeing it. but rant aside, i still don't have the 'c' file, even with the 24h2 showing, so i don't think they're related at all... but i could be wrong. I'll post back any findings i come across regarding 'c'.

PS - do you have any mods on your pc with the 'c'? any custom repositories you manually installed (github or otherwise)? curious if you and @Bree have any 3rd party installations in common (I'm sure there has to be at least 1)


EDIT:
you both have Acer Aspires - may be worth looking into Acer related stuff first

@dacrone Okay, so I removed virtually all Acer Aspire "bloatware" when I initially reinstalled a fresh copy of Windows, as they are blatantly just flat out bad software. I had a bad Win update that didn't "work well" with one of the mods I had, and a severe crash occurred. This crash destroyed my SSD along with the backups I had, so, I wasn't able to restore, so, I had to reinstall Windows back in November 2024. To quickly get back up and running, I used and in the past have used Chris Titus's WinUtil. Yes, I tweaked some functionality (disable Telemetry, enable Ultimate Power plan, enable verbose messaging during startup/ shutdown, detailed BSOD, set unnecessary services to manual) through that app, but mainly use that to install/ reinstall my software (quick and easy, usually within minutes). Only other mods WAU Manager (Windows update manager - allows to choose when and which updates to install), Windhawk (see screen shot for enabled mods), Winearo, and Microsoft Store apps: Lively Wallpaper and Translucent TB. I've created PowerShell scripts and batch files primarily for scheduled tasks - mainly Windows tasks that are supposed to run that don't because they are broken (disk maintenance [PowerShell], registry backup [.bat] ). But that's about it - I don't think I'm forgetting anything else. Gaming Emulation are official releases - Dolphin, RetroArch, PCXS2, Duckstation, etc. except for Rosalie's Mupen64 GUI (which I did acquire from GitHub). The below images represent Scheduled tasks I created, and the Windhawk mods that are installed. Other than that, as far as backup I have Easus Todo Backup that takes care of my backups, and have protection and encryption enabled. Those are pretty much my main and major system players and tweaks.

EDIT: Oh, there is also Uniget that I recently reinstalled and that was from GitHub as well - but installed that around November 15th, I think.

Ghot said:

I don't have a "c" file....

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my System One does have a "c" file.....

Ghot said:

I did the 24H2 upgrade (In-Place), sometime in October 2024.
I never "installed" Win 11.
I did an In-Place upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11, in 2021.

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Very similar history, all my upgrades were done through Windows Update. From 'My Computers' below...

"..,fully 'Windows 11 ready' laptop. Windows 10 C: partition migrated from my old unsupported 'main machine' ... was offered the upgrade in Windows Update on 20th October. Windows Update offered the 22H2 Feature Update on 20th September 2022. It got the 23H2 Feature Update on 4th November 2023 through Windows Update, and 24H2 on 3rd October 2024 through Windows Update by setting the Target Release Version for 24H2."

Ghot said:

Also... I don't have either a Recovery partition or the 16MB MSR partition.
NOTE: The In-Place upgrade to 24H2, created a new Recovery partition, but I removed it again.

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There we differ. I never removed my MSR or recovery partitions, and recovery being large enough at 784MB 24H2 didn't need to make a new one.

New 24H2 Build
No "c" file.

Just a note: I have HP and Dell Desktops plus HP, Dell and Lenovo Notebooks, all at 24H2 and no "c" file or folder on them. From what I read here I get a feeling Acer may be a common theme.

Bree said:

my System One does have a "c" file.....


Very similar history, all my upgrades were done through Windows Update. From 'My Computers' below...

"..,fully 'Windows 11 ready' laptop. Windows 10 C: partition migrated from my old unsupported 'main machine' ... was offered the upgrade in Windows Update on 20th October. Windows Update offered the 22H2 Feature Update on 20th September 2022. It got the 23H2 Feature Update on 4th November 2023 through Windows Update, and 24H2 on 3rd October 2024 through Windows Update by setting the Target Release Version for 24H2."


There we differ. I never removed my MSR or recovery partitions, and recovery being large enough at 784MB 24H2 didn't need to make a new one.

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is your system with the 'c' running anything in common from what @bn40400 listed above?

dacrone said:

is your system with the 'c' running anything in common from what @bn40400 listed above?

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No. A clean W11, just as as MS intended. The only customisations are those MS provides tools/options for. No 3rd party mods of any sort. That can be said for all my systems with a 'c' file.

that's really weird that it would show on clean installs but there is no trace of it anywhere online. i searched for about an hour last night and found no other topics regarding this file. now I'm really curious haha

dacrone said:

that's really weird that it would show on clean installs....

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No, all the machines that have a 'c' file have been installed for some time and have had at least one Feature Update through Windows Update (though none of the upgrade dates match the created/modified dates for their 'c'). My only machine without a 'c' file had a clean install of 24H2 (post #18).

Bree said:

No, all the machines that have a 'c' file have been installed for some time and have had at least one Feature Update through Windows Update. My only machine without a 'c' file had a clean install of 24H2 (post #18).

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poor choice of words. didnt mean fresh install. meant clean as in not modified

Berton said:

From what I read here I get a feeling Acer may be a common theme.

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So, I think I may be coming in agreement with @Berton here....maybe it is an Acer thing. But I'm also wondering if it's possibly something that a shadow copy leaves behind perhaps when a backup is occurring? For example, with EaseUs Todo, it creates a shadow copy of the drive while backing up the PC while the PC is in use (even though I have it scheduled to backup while I'm sleeping, and if the PC is in sleep mode the app does wake up the device to perform the backup). The drive I have routinely backed up is my C: - So, could this be a possibility? I would imagine that it would create a shadow copy of the drive (prior to writing to the backup disk) and would have to place it somewhere on the drive and then write the compressed file into an uncompressed state to my backup disk to minimize impact/ interruption, right?