Windows 10: Empty .tmp directories on C: drive and external HDD

I have many empty directories MSxxxx.tmp and _xxxxx_ as shown in the screenshot. I have been deleting them regularly but they reappear within a very short time. What causes them and how can I prevent them?





:)

 

Deleting C:|msi*.tmp empty folders

shilohbob,

OK - I finally was able to remove these directories.

Note that there were 98 directories msi*.tmp and 6 that start and end with an underscore.

First I enabled the Administrator account - this account has more power than a normal account that has administrative privileges. I was able to delete about half the msi*.tmp directories right away. The rest of them needed more help ... clearing the read-only
and hidden flags, changing the permissions. The underscore directories had to be deleted one at a time by taking ownership and then changing permissions.

During this process somehow the recycle bin got corrupted and Windows 10 harassed me about it every thirty seconds or so, asking me if I wanted to empty it. But it would not allow me to empty due to the permission stuff. So I checked the web and found a
way to reset it [open an Admin command prompt, enter the remove directory command "rd /s /q C:\Recycle.bin", and then reboot]. This worked.

So I was able to remove all these empty ghost directories.

After all this I wonder if I could have just gone to the Admin command prompt and entered "rd /s /q C:\msi*.tmp". I am curious if this would have worked - but I can no longer test this since I do not have any more ghost directories!

Thanks for the input.

John

 

Deleting C:|msi*.tmp empty folders

Thanks.

But I did not say the empty directories were malware. I said that the program that Microsoft posted on one of its responses was labeled malware by its own operating system, Windows 10. Win-10 told me that the Microsoft program was not safe because it's certificate
was not valid - it advised me not to run it.

I am fine with deleting the empty directories ---- they cannot be really important since they have zero bytes.

I also tried to use Disk Cleanup but it did not do anything - I suppose this is (as you say) because these are empty directories, not files. And deleting them would not free much disk space. However, having 104 extra empty directories in C:\ is unsightly.

Again - the problem is that Windows will not allow the empty directories {C:\msi*.tmp] to be deleted even with administrator privileges. And it will not allow me to take ownership and delete them either.

Incidentally, all of these files are from 2013. It appears that I was able to delete the more recent directories.

 

Where are they? You picture looks like they are in recycle bin.

 

They are in the root of E as is the recycle bin. Similar files are in the root of C:

 

You could try running Windows Update

According to this which looks similar... Huge amount of MSI####.tmp folders being generated into Windows\installer?

Something is trying (and failing) to install something in any case.

 

I do have an update downloaded and installed this afternoon just waiting on a reboot but I'm getting these every day even when there is no update. thanks for the link I'll check it out.

 

After reading the article in the link I checked the update history and cumulative update (KB4020102) failed many times and never completed successfully. Today's update was the next cumulative update and has installed successfully. Perhaps that will solve the issue. I'll report back later.