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Folders with long random words and letters

Tags:
  • Gaming
  • Malware
  • Hard Drives
  • Computers
  • Storage
  • Virus
  • Games
  • Software
Last response: in Storage
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July 31, 2013 10:48:09 PM

My computer has 3-4 weeks since I built it (gaming computer) and I downloaded all my games and software. I've noticed that there are 20+ folders with names like 1cc257829bebe0b3188a62beb7 and 079db73cb94755d3fe59fe9306fd2546. First thing I thought was "virus" and I inmediately scanned for malware. The scan turned negattive saying there were no viruses on the computer but the folders are increasing and increasing. In these folders there are no files. I have windows 7 downloaded from the internet. My computer's main storage is a 128GB SSD where most my games are (all downloaded from steam or origin, not pirated) and a 1TB hard drive where I save all my other stuff. The strange folders are in the 1 tera drive. I tried deleting them but they keep coming. I suspect that steam is the one making these folders because the only things I have downloaded are games and main software for the computer. Please help!

SSD: Samsung 840 128GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003

More about : folders long random words letters

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a b 4 Gaming
a b G Storage
July 31, 2013 11:06:44 PM

They are the MD5 and/or SHA1 of the Windows Updates.
- This makes look-up faster and far more reliable as two different patches with the same name will not have the same hash/HMAC values.
- https://www.google.com.au/search?q=md5+sha1

If they are over 72 hours old, and you have restarted since they can be safely deleted.
The Disk Clean-up Wizard generally ignores these folders.


32 hexadecimal characters (numbers, including A-F) gives 2^128 values; which is quite a lot.

Windows Updates stores files in a certain place, they then usually get extracted to the volume with the most free space prior to installation.

These folders are not made by Steam.
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a b 4 Gaming
a c 92 G Storage
July 31, 2013 11:07:57 PM

bustinya said:
My computer has 3-4 weeks since I built it (gaming computer) and I downloaded all my games and software. I've noticed that there are 20+ folders with names like 1cc257829bebe0b3188a62beb7 and 079db73cb94755d3fe59fe9306fd2546. First thing I thought was "virus" and I inmediately scanned for malware. The scan turned negattive saying there were no viruses on the computer but the folders are increasing and increasing. In these folders there are no files. I have windows 7 downloaded from the internet. My computer's main storage is a 128GB SSD where most my games are (all downloaded from steam or origin, not pirated) and a 1TB hard drive where I save all my other stuff. The strange folders are in the 1 tera drive. I tried deleting them but they keep coming. I suspect that steam is the one making these folders because the only things I have downloaded are games and main software for the computer. Please help!

SSD: Samsung 840 128GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003


Those are temporary folders used for a variety of purposes including Windows Update. They will usually be cleaned up on their own, or can be cleaned up manually with disk cleanup. I've seen them myself. Normally they're deleted after a bit though. Nothing to worry about.
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March 20, 2014 9:58:51 AM

Tabris DarkPeace said:
They are the MD5 and/or SHA1 of the Windows Updates.
- This makes look-up faster and far more reliable as two different patches with the same name will not have the same hash/HMAC values.
- https://www.google.com.au/search?q=md5+sha1

If they are over 72 hours old, and you have restarted since they can be safely deleted.
The Disk Clean-up Wizard generally ignores these folders.


32 hexadecimal characters (numbers, including A-F) gives 2^128 values; which is quite a lot.

Windows Updates stores files in a certain place, they then usually get extracted to the volume with the most free space prior to installation.

These folders are not made by Steam.



I have the same thing going on, but wondered if there is anyway to direct these to a subfolder, as I hate scrolling through them to find my actual desired c folders.
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