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View Full Version : Anomaly in otherwise stable system (WME)



kjavds
07-18-2005, 04:41 AM
It's been four years and now I've just GOT to know. I've had this PC a long time and it's been remarkably stable, useful and satisfactory. I love it, and I wouldn't want to trade it. It was a bargain purchase, a return or something like that, an eMachines 633MHz system that the OEM took its label off of. I got it from a clearance house, so technically it's second hand.

Well it's fine, but in the root directory it has a folder that I think doesn't belong, a suspected red herring, a folder called WINNT. Will someone running WME v4.9.3000 check their root directory and see if they have such a folder. It takes a lot of space, and if it doesn't belong, I'll back it up to an offline disk and delete it. Nothing in it seems to have been created or modified since 9/2001. Most items are dated 12/1999. Of course I'd have to explore all the subdirectories to be 100% sure and that's a huge undertaking. I've examined some of the obvious though, and found no exceptions. Well however, there are 3 folders of note, scheduled tasks (Tasks), Offline Web Pages, and Downloaded Program Files, and these contain current modules; BUT they appear to be exact duplicates of what's also in my main WINDOWS subfolders of the same names. I could certainly keep those few that might be of current value, and trash (after backup) the remainder.

I'd like to get some expert opinion.


-KJS

BertImmenschuh
07-18-2005, 06:22 AM
The C:\WINNT folder is the default used by WinNT 4 and Win2000 when installed. File dates you give indicate it was Win2000, I would presume someone installed or tried to install Win2000 at some point.

Could also be it was dual-booting Win2000, look for a boot.ini file in the root of C:. If there, open it in Notepad and copy the contents and paste back here.

If you also have the Windows folder that is default for Win9x/ME/XP, you probably can delete the WINNT folder. But you might rename it to WINNTOld and run awhile to be sure there would be no effect on other things.

<font color=blue>Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.</font color=blue> <font color=green>Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.</font color=green>

kjavds
07-18-2005, 06:38 AM
Thank you Bert! that is extremely helpful, and it tends to confirm my suspicions. I looked and there is no BOOT.INI file, anywhere.

-KJS

BertImmenschuh
07-18-2005, 07:21 AM
You're welcome.

<font color=blue>Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.</font color=blue> <font color=green>Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.</font color=green>