Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Folders with random and unreadable names will occasionally appear on your machine. They're typically the side effect of an update that didn't clean up.
I found these two entries while using Windows Explorer in Local Disk C:
5b6de5225ad398e1a3d65428
5da1b70ef43f9d294a281e704
What do they mean? Can I safely delete them or transfer them to My Documents?
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What they are is easy.
Whether or not you can, or should, delete them depends on where they are.
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These folders are most often created by various update utilities - most often Windows update - as temporary locations to store files before or while the update is applies to your machine. They're supposed to be deleted automatically when the update is finished. But as you've experienced, that's not always the case.
Same for me, by the way. I just found a folder "C:\66b56c24fd10a4d55d658cce1cc19e" on my machine.
If you have more than one drive, you may find them on drives other than C: as well. I've found them on my external hard drive, E:, on occasion as well.
The short answer is that if these folders exist at the root of one of your drives, you're quite safe to delete them, particularly if they've been around for a while. They're just unnecessary leftovers from a previous software update.
If you're paranoid - and it's often good to be paranoid - you can always copy the folder to some other location or burn it to a CD. That way in case we were wrong, in case something appears to start misbehaving after removing the folder, you can always restore it from the backup.
Me? I just deleted "C:\66b56c24fd10a4d55d658cce1cc19e" from my machine.
One caveat: if you find these folders anywhere underneath your Windows directory, I'd be tempted to leave them alone. I've seen comments that it's possible that they might hold the updated files for a possible uninstall, or for Windows System File Protection. As long as they're not taking up much space, then they're fairly benign anyway.
However if you can't resist and want to delete them anyway, then I definitely recommend copying them somewhere for safety first, just in case.
Article C2915 - January 30, 2007
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I have an external hd that I used to use on my XPSP3 machine that has 6 of these folders on it, and nothing I do (setting permissions, security etc) is working to remove these files. Formatting the drive is out of the question, as the drive hold artwork and photography projects. How can I get rid of them?
Posted by: Sandra at January 16, 2009 3:12 AMForgot to mention, using the external drive for my Vista Home Premium.
Posted by: Sandra at January 16, 2009 3:14 AMI found a combo of David's steps and Jesse's suggestion to work for every set of folders I had of this type. Try both suggestions, and make sure you select 'replace permission entries on all child...'. Make sure when you switch ownership, it's to a user with Admin rights and you then give it full permissions.
Thanks guys - this was a big annoyance on all my NTFS removeable drives.
Posted by: John at November 1, 2009 12:56 PMIt works for me, based on Leo's recommendations:
Properties, Security, Full Control.
I have to do one for each folder (I got 4 folders).
So I deleted them all...one at a time...
Thank you.
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Posted by: Oddly I queried my question and in less than 2 minutes I got my answer. at October 19, 2011 7:41 PM