temp folder

[OffIceEchl]

Help! I love Avast virus scanner but.......everytime I run a scan it writes to the temp file in documents & settings,under my user name file, in local settings, temp file. I have a 120gig harddrive & it almost filled my hard drive up when I had about 80 gig's free space. Are my settings incorrect or something? I had to manually delete thousands of temp files to get my free space back. HELP!

[mr.morden]

try to reboot your comp and see does those GB come back

[OffIceEchl]

I tried that, it didn't help.

[igor]

You are right, that really shouldn't happen.

Can you tell us something more about the files? What are their names? Are they created (and kept!) when scanning a particular folder?
I guess they are the result of unpacking archives - i.e. when scanning of archives is turned on; it would be nice to find out what kind of archives causes this problem (normally, they should be deleted automatically, of course).

Btw, you are using the latest build of avast, right?

[OffIceEchl]

Yes I update daily. The files all have .tmp on the end. I deleted all of them so I can't give specific names.

[igor]

Well, I meant if they were started with e.g. unpXXXXX...
Anyway, check it occasionally, please... and if they start appearing again, let us know. Maybe you'll find out when they are created.

[OffIceEchl]

Here's some of the file names. I ran another partial scan to get some names for you. trz7D4.tmp, trz7D5.tmp, trz7D6.tmp, trz7D7.tmp,thru  7D9, thentrz7DA, thru 7DF, then trz7E0 , 7E1 etc. Maybe this will help. I hope anyway.

[igor]

I must say I'm confused now
I have never seen this kind of file names (related to avast!)... I'm starting to think that they are not really created by avast... but of course, I may have missed some recent changes.
Do you have any software installed whose name may resemble "TRZ" (in some kind of abbreviation)?
These file are directly in the temp folder, or in a subdirectory (subdirectories)?

[pk]

Hmm, hmm... dont know avast would use 'trz' prefix in the temp files and hex number... are those files in \Local Settings\Temp\_avast4_ folder ? If not, they are not created with avast.

Edited: yep, 23 seconds later - but it counts! to Vlk: heh, and I tried word truhla but no z was there... anyway, i thought we use original fn for temp file creation - hex numbers confused me as well...

[Vlk]

These are avast's temp files, really. They're related to the virus chest (trz stands for trezor - you don't have to worry if you don't understand this word )

Question is, how did these files get to the temp folder, and why they stayed there...

Do you have any files in the Chest?

[OffIceEchl]

I don't think I have any programs simular to trz. I have several copies of eicar test virus in the chest.

[Vlk]

So to sum up: are you saying that a mere scan of your hard drive creates tens of gigabytes of data in your temp folder, in files with names like trzXXX.tmp???

Is this problem reproducible? I.e. if you do the scan again, you eventually end up with the files in the temp folder, even though you deleted them before running the scan?

[OffIceEchl]

Yes it happens every time I scan. I always scan on high and scan archives. Maybe I have something set incorrectly in Windows XP Professional. I just don't know. I've been trying to figure this out most of the day.

[Vlk]

Maybe posting a screenshot of the Explorer view of the temp folder (set to the Details view, and sorted by file size) would be helpful.

Thanks
Vlk

[OffIceEchl]

OK I'm dumber than I thought. How do I post a screen shot.