3 replies to this topic

[glen sommers]

Wondering why I see "marked for deletion" on the same line as the index.dat files when I run CCleaner. Are these files actually deleted or not?

[DennisD]

Hi glen, and welcome to Piriform.

Index.dat files can only be deleted on reboot, which explains the "Marked For Deletion" dialogue.

They are definitely deleted, but a new one is immediately created by Windows after rebooting, but without the information contained in the previous one.

[Robbie]

Just to add to Dennis' post: the reason why index.dat files cannot be deleted when CCleaner is run but rather are marked for deletion (on reboot) is that they are locked by the operating system as Windows effectively treats them as system files. CCleaner tells Windows to delete these files at reboot and after Windows has completed this task it recreates a new version of each index.dat file that has been deleted.

[Augeas]

And to add to Dennis' and Rob's posts index.dat files are not embraced by CC's secure delete option, as Windows does the deletion. But Recuva can splat them.