How to safely delete Windows Assembly Temp folder? [FULL GUIDE]
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The Windows Assembly Temp folder is part of the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) tool that is used to install and uninstall assemblies by using Windows Uninstaller. This feature helps you uninstall and install assemblies in the testing process of installation packages and for servers. (tmp is used for installation, and Temp is used for uninstallation).
A wide range of people has reported having issues with the Temp folder found in Windows Assembly. They say that the automatic cleaning of the Temp folder never happens, so this results in the folder growing to the size of 20-30 GB.
For these reasons, in this article, we will discuss the possible reasons for which your computer doesn’t clean the Temp folders automatically, and also how to safely remove the data from the Temp folder.
How can I delete Windows Assembly Temp folder?
Why isn’t the Windows Assembly Temp folder cleaning itself automatically?
One of the possible reasons for which the Windows Assembly Temp folder isn’t getting cleaned automatically could be the incompatibility with another 3rd party software installed on your PC.
The issue seems to be caused by antivirus software that was found on all the computers that had this issue. This problem has been reproduced on clean installations of Windows Server, by simply installing the antivirus software called ‘G Data’.
This antivirus software seems to somehow block the automatic process of deleting temporary files stored on your PC for installing or uninstalling software. The symptoms have also been reproduced on Windows 7, Windows 10, and Windows 2008 R2.
The user that found out about this software causing the issue, even got a confirmation from the developers of the G Data antivirus software, that they are aware of the issue and that they are working towards solving it.
How to remove the data from the Windows Assembly Temp folder?
Even though a permanent solution to this issue hasn’t been found yet, users have deleted the files stored in the Temp folders manually. They selected all the files stored inside this folder and used the Delete option to send them to the Recycle Bin.
Note: Some of the files stored in the Temp folder (c:>windows>assembly>temp folder) will not be able to be deleted as they are still in use by the operating system.
Users have not reported any sort of issues caused by deleting the contents of the folders manually, but it is strongly recommended to leave both ‘tmp’ and ‘temp’ folders untouched. The contents of these folders can be removed without issues.
In this article we found out what the ‘tmp’ and ‘temp’ folders from Windows Assembly are used for, and that it is safe to remove the contents of these folders, but not delete the actual folders.
To learn more about other temporary folders, check our SquirrelTemp folder guide.
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