The option "Empty Temporary Internet Files folders when browser is closed" does not work ?

SYMPTOM

Microsoft Internet Explorer may fail to delete Temporary Internet files, even if the advanced option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folders when browser is closed is turned on.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because a file lock is placed on temporary Internet files by third-party programs, such as antivirus software, when Internet Explorer tries to perform the temporary file deletion routine. This issue may occur if you try to manually delete the temporary Internet files or when you close Internet Explorer.

This issue may also occur if a central repository is used for temporary Internet files such as a network share, to store temporary Internet files for more than one user in the same folder. Microsoft does not support a configuration. The temporary Internet file location must be set on a "per user" basis, that is one folder per user. This is default behavior for Internet Explorer.

Now that you know the reason why the option does not work. Like anti-virus programs, some of the third-party programs may place a lock on your Temporary Internet Files and Index.dat. To determine the third-party utilities that've locked the Temporary Internet Files (TIF) Index, you may use Process Explorer. This is a top quality tool to manage Processes

List all Processes that locked the Index.dat

Download Process Explorer from Sysinternals and run the program. Click the Find menu, and choose Find Handle

Type-in CONTENT.IE5 as the search phrase. (CONTENT.IE5 is a sub-folder of TIF folder )

After typing the search phrase, click the Search button. Now, you should see the number of applications that've locked the Index.dat and the files in TIF folder

Here is a sample screenshot, that shows the list of applications that are using the TIF Index.



In this example, the following applications were using the TIF index.dat

Microsoft Outlook Express
Microsoft Internet Explorer (obvious)
Yahoo! Messenger
MSN Messenger
CacheSentry

After closing all the applications, I opened a fresh instance of Internet Explorer. Visited a site and then closed it. Now, as the TIF is not locked, Internet Explorer could successfully clear the Temporary Internet Files on exit.

*** In this example, around 500 TIF files have been erased, thus freeing up ~4MB of space when IExplore was closed. ***