How Important Are Log Files?

[LOOP]

When i got to "Search" & type *.log into "all files and folders" i get over 400 log files. Is it important that i keep these files?

[Terry Hanushek]

Loop

When i got to "Search" & type *.log into "all files and folders" i get over 400 log files. Is it important that i keep these files?
It is hard to make a general statement. Some are undoubtedly of little value. Many contain historical data which possibly may have value is researching a situation. A couple may be critical to resolving of problem or understanding the condition. The trick is identifying the couple crucial ones. :confused:

400 files is a relatively low number on a current Windows based computers (my computer here in the office has over 400,000). Whenever I am given a choice of deleting .log files in a file cleaning program, I decline.

I would recommend that you leave your .log files and focus on other high value targets like .tmp files and temporary Internet files.

HTH

Terry

[LOOP]

ty terry

[dbarrow]

There are so many things that have a penchant for creating log and tmp files that it gets hard to decide what to delete.
I go by date...
There are functions and programs that create daily or weekly log files and they can really get peeved when you delete the most current one "in use".
In many cases, you can delete the file as it is not flagged "access denied - in use". Nothing happens until the program or function that created it goes to write to it and can't find it then, all hell breaks loose!

I only delete these files if over a month old and pay particular attention in %\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\temp to identify what these files belong to (right click properties) and how often they are created (a series of similar files belonging to the same thing with regular dates)

A prime example of this would be Zone Alarm log files.
There is a setting in the program defaulted to DAILY that you have to uncheck to keep it using the most current one or it stacks them up by the ton.
DELETE that file and it blows the entire program config!

There are other similar log and tmp files where the same kind of thing will happen. I learned the hard way to be very selective what and when I purge, particularly in that folder. As a rule of thumb, EMPTY your recycle bin before going on a purge. Keep the files in the recycle bin afterwards and do not empty for at least a week. If something suddenly throws a hissy, restore from the recycle bin one by one until you identify the problem file.

This may be why CLEANUP does not touch this folder as well as many other "cleaning" programs. But then there are others that do not discriminate and you may run up against a "cleaner" that strips out these files. Some of them do not send the files to the recycle bin and just totally eradicate them so there is no recover other than a backup or image restore, something I recall having to resort to after an aggressive cleaning campaign!

The other side to the problem is an ever increasing OS size as these accumulate to the point where they start sucking up HD space.
If you maintain XP on an isolated partition of its own, over time, you will note that it grows at a slow but steady creep and will gain gigs of garbage. I have had to adjust up my OS partition size with a partition tool to increase space for this creep a couple times. It is almost impossible to track all of these back to the source programs and every program thinks it has the right to park log and tmp files within the OS folders.