what the hell is this --------------------> 4593b683f562bf4b3c82b281b211

Guy:Incognito

Yes i do realise its a long sequence of numbers and letters. Basically what it is is the name of a folder that appeared in my c: drive today insdie the folder is another folder called download and inside that is a _p file called dao360.dll._p. Anyone any ideas as to what it is and if i shud just delete it.

Mountjoy Mugger

It looks like a temporary directory that was created after you installed something. I'd delete it.

KdjaCL

Thats what it is exactly ,sometimes when not deleted if you try to reinstall the proggie it wont cos that folder tells it thats its still there.

Loads of them in Program Files/ Installshield in XP

kdjac

Gordon

Do you use filesharing programs like Kazaa?

Guy:Incognito

ueah i do use kazaa but havnt come across this b4, have occasionaly found similar name files directly in the C: drive. Cheers for the help people.

dahamsta

Most likely a service pack. SP's extract themselves to a folder like that before running. It should have been cleaned up when the install completed.

adam

GUI

its a service pack temporary directory

Oriel

Try moving it to somewhere else on your hard drive.
If you are able to move it, then it's not currently being used. Keep it in the new location, and then delete it when you feel it is safe to do so. If moving it causes a problem (getting error messages etc) then you can simply move it back again.

If you can't actually move it, then it's something more important than you thought it was...

Polonious

I installed the MS Win2k patch for the blaster virus and same thing appeared in my C:\ drive. Have you installed that recently???

PaulMagrath

It's a temporary directory.

It is perfectly safe to delete.

If you are using Kazaa, uninstall it and install Kazaa Lite instead.

Then run Adaware 6.0 to get rid of any remaining spyware.