Solved Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

ThrashZone · Jan 22, 2022

Hi,
I feel bad I never look.

humbird · Jan 22, 2022

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
I feel bad I never look.

I don't know why these empty .tmp folders bug me so. I stopped looking at event viewer years ago. Guess I have to have something to worry about.

ThrashZone · Jan 22, 2022

Hi,
Yep I guess I have a couple million now lol

humbird · Jan 22, 2022

Hehe. they do like to add up.

Ghot · Jan 22, 2022

humbird said:
They are really a pain and add up fast. I really am not having any problems having disabled provisioning tool logon task. Only the two old games but that could have been something else though I doubt it because it did happen to 2 of them and a very short time after disabling the logon task.

Well, I just disabled the Logon Task on Win 10 ( I believe it's been disabled on Win 11, since I made this topic),
and MS Links 2003 (golf), still works.
This game seems to break at the least provocation.

So I will leave the Logon Task on Win 10 disabled for a while, again I believe, and see if anything happens.

humbird · Jan 22, 2022

Ghot said:
Well, I just disabled the Logon Task on Win 10 ( I believe it's been disabled on Win 11, since I made this topic),
and MS Links 2003 (golf), still works.
This game seems to break at the least provocation.

So I will leave the Logon Task on Win 10 disabled for a while, again I believe, and see if anything happens.

I seem to remember some years back I was having the same problem with .tmp folders in windows 10 but I think they were in a different location, (could be wrong).

mm71 · Jan 23, 2022

Ghot said:
Windows 11 creates lots of empty folders in a System32 directory - gHacks Tech News

Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system creates lots of empty folders in a System32 directory, just like the Windows 10 operating system.

www.ghacks.net

Topic: tw-xxx-yyyy-zzzz .tmp files @ AskWoody

I found 2200 of them on my Windows 10 install, and 180 of them on my recent Windows 11 install.
Location: C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local

They're all empty folders, beginning with tw and ending with .tmp
Deleting them seems to have no side effects.

I get an Access Denied error when I try to open the config folder...

humbird · Jan 23, 2022

mm71 said:
I get an Access Denied error when I try to open the config folder...

If you are admin and you wait does the folder open anyway? After the popup saying access denied does a bar start filling up? You may just need to wait a few seconds to get access. If that is not the problem then post back. The problem may be with your account. Have your other issues resolved yet?

FJRMarty · Jan 23, 2022

mm71 said:
I get an Access Denied error when I try to open the config folder...

Yeah, me too. That's as far as I got. I thought I was the Admin?
Got to see those tw*.tmp folders through CMD window, but I forget all those DOS commands - deltree didn't work, or I missed a qualifier.

humbird · Jan 23, 2022

See this post first.
Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

Accounts help Recommended
Change Account Type in Windows 11 Tutorial

This can have undesired consequences on some system files and folders. Someone may come along with a batch script instead for deleting these .tmp folders. Do this at your own risk. You may just want to fix your accounts instead. You could end up having to reinstall windows if you do not know what to change and what not to change. Ok so now that warning is out of the way.

Add Take Ownership to Context Menu in Windows 11 Tutorial

FJRMarty · Jan 23, 2022

humbird said:
See this post first.
Windows 10 & 11 create tons of empty folders in System32

Accounts help Recommended
Change Account Type in Windows 11 Tutorial

This can have undesired consequences on some system files and folders. Someone may come along with a batch script instead for deleting these .tmp folders. Do this at your own risk. You may just want to fix your accounts instead. You could end up having to reinstall windows if you do not know what to change and what not to change. Ok so now that warning is out of the way.

Add Take Ownership to Context Menu in Windows 11 Tutorial

Thanks, humbird!
Weird, once I disabled the 'Provisioning-at-logon' and rebooted I had access to those tw*.tmp folders in File Explorer. Didn't need to 'Take Ownership' of any folders, yet...

Sent them all to the Recycle Bin, but uh-oh, on reboot, no external mouse or keyboard. Ol' fat-fingers had clicked a couple extra folders by mistake (I am one-handed for now, so I clicked the 1100+ subfolders and unclicked the few non-tmp folders I want to leave alone) but I easily restored them from Recycle bin (overwriting the newly-created folders). Mouse and keyboard restored.
Checked and still no new tw*.tmp folders.

Windows - still scratching my head after all these years...

humbird · Jan 23, 2022

FJRMarty said:
Thanks, humbird!
Weird, once I disabled the 'Provisioning-at-logon' and rebooted I had access to those tw*.tmp folders in File Explorer. Didn't need to 'Take Ownership' of any folders, yet...

Sent them all to the Recycle Bin, but uh-oh, on reboot, no external mouse or keyboard. Ol' fat-fingers had clicked a couple extra folders by mistake (I am one-handed for now, so I clicked the 1100+ subfolders and unclicked the few non-tmp folders I want to leave alone) but I easily restored them from Recycle bin (overwriting the newly-created folders).
Checked and still no new tw*.tmp folders.

Windows - still scratching my head after all these years...

Yep , gotta be careful that they are only the empty .tmp folders. :)
Happy you got it all sorted out.

EDIT your post will help others that cannot delete the .tmp files

ThrashZone · Jan 23, 2022

Hi,
Yeah I checked 10 and 11
I don't use 11 all that much but it seems to create 20 of these folders per daily login which today is only the third time I use 11 on x299 so a whopping 60 temp folders

Win-10 creates 19 per daily login and I don't use it very much either but it had under 300 of these folders

So 365 x 20 = 7300 folders if i used these os's every day
Guess it's penalty for logging out and in lol :lmao:

ThrashZone · Jan 23, 2022

Must create them on logout because no new ones created yet for today.

mm71 · Jan 23, 2022

humbird said:
If you are admin and you wait does the folder open anyway? After the popup saying access denied does a bar start filling up? You may just need to wait a few seconds to get access. If that is not the problem then post back. The problem may be with your account. Have your other issues resolved yet?

No, nothing happens. I am just about to do the repair upgrade to solve the other issues (I hope), but I am not sure I should allow updates, as an update might have caused the problem. I can update later I guess, and check after every update if there are problems?

Dch48 · Jan 23, 2022

The ones I had were in batches with dates 4 or 5 days apart and sometimes more. They were not being created daily. There are no new ones since I deleted them all yesterday. I shut my computer down when I'm not going to be using it for a while, so it has been booted up twice since then.

humbird · Jan 24, 2022

mm71 said:
No, nothing happens. I am just about to do the repair upgrade to solve the other issues (I hope), but I am not sure I should allow updates, as an update might have caused the problem. I can update later I guess, and check after every update if there are problems?

Sorry I was not present to help out and I hope you were able to get things all sorted out. If you haven't done anything yet it would be fine to be disconnected from the internet. Have your drivers on usb if you need to install any with the windows install. You can do updates later.

mm71 · Jan 24, 2022

Thanks, the repair upgrade was quick and there were no issues, but it didn't fix my problems. I did exclude updates, and they were all there after restarting, and Dell would not check for updates for an hour because the system had just been updated... but... nothing was fixed... Very minor personalization changes, like no notifications in the taskbar...

humbird · Jan 24, 2022

Is your system still under warranty? You can either do a clean install or call Dell for support. Dell adds many programs that may interfere with Windows. That trial version of McAfee for instance. If the trial period has passed and you chose to use it, it could be having problems. I never did like Dell updater software. It runs constantly unless you turn it off. There is a Dell forum that may be helpful on some of your particular problems. Myself I would do a clean install and get rid of preinstalled crap. It will not void your warranty. I would download the iso from Microsoft.. This is what I would do. If you would rather try to keep troubleshooting there are lots of people here with lots of knowledge. Please make a new thread with new and old problems under general so we can get the problems looked at by more people. Someone may have more ideas. We need to recap on the problems you are having in one thread and what you have done so far to troubleshoot the problems. Go to Dell and plug in your service tag. Maybe there is an update for something that we are missing here.

Product Support | Dell US

humbird · Jan 24, 2022

mm71 said:
Thanks, the repair upgrade was quick and there were no issues, but it didn't fix my problems. I did exclude updates, and they were all there after restarting, and Dell would not check for updates for an hour because the system had just been updated... but... nothing was fixed... Very minor personalization changes, like no notifications in the taskbar...

Are you wanting notifications from Windows or Dell? Or turning them off? Or?

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