CCleaner Recreating SuggestedSites.dat file

[Barry Tushingham]

I'm having problems with removal of Internet temporary files with Disk Cleanup which I think might be something related to CCleaner.

I have traced the file causing the problem as being "SuggestedSites.dat" which is stored in C:/windows/users/%Username"/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/inetcache/low" subdirectory.

If I delete this manually, and then run CCleaner once to remove files, it does not see this file (which is to be expected as I have just deleted it).

However, disk cleanup still reports it as being there.

If i then, immediately, run CCleaner a second time then the file is found but is not deleted.

I suspect, therefore, that CCleaner is some how re-creating it from something on my laptop.

Does anyone have an answer or suggestion relating to stopping this happening.

I am running Windows 10 (latest edition) and do not ask for suggested sites to be used>

[nukecad]

It's not CCleaner creating the file its Windows.

If you delete the file, Windows will just recreate it.

It does not matter if you have 'suggested sites' disabled - Windows creates the file anyway.

MS merely say that turning off 'suggested sites' means that they will not be sent the data in the file.
The file will still be created by Windows though.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie11-iewindows_10/what-is-suggestedsitesdat-file-problem-in-removing/d1783fdb-0d67-44e8-a0c5-1e729d28c0ee

Quote

Suggested Sites is an online service designed to suggest other websites you might be interested in based on the websites you visit most. This is accomplished by the file called SuggestedSites.dat. When you turn on Suggested Sites, your web browsing history is sent to Microsoft, where it is saved and compared to a frequently updated list of related websites. You can choose to stop Internet Explorer from sending your web browsing history to Microsoft at any time. You can also delete individual entries from your history at any time. Deleted entries will not be used to provide you with suggestions for other websites, although they will be retained by Microsoft for a period of time to help improve our products and services, including this feature.

[Barry Tushingham]

4 hours ago, nukecad said:

It's not CCleaner creating the file its Windows.

If you delete the file, Windows will just recreate it.

It does not matter if you have 'suggested sites' disabled - Windows creates the file anyway.

MS merely say that turning off 'suggested sites' means that they will not be sent the data in the file.
The file will still be created by Windows though.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie11-iewindows_10/what-is-suggestedsitesdat-file-problem-in-removing/d1783fdb-0d67-44e8-a0c5-1e729d28c0ee

 

[Barry Tushingham]

if i can't get  rid of suggestedsites.dat i need to keep it as small as possible.

Currently I have only 2 GB space on my  laptop and so need to increase this to a more acceptable level.

As it is,  Windows update sometimes expects 3 GB of space to function.

Suggestedsites.dat is taking up 500MB of space and this is one area that I can hopefully recover.

How do i do this??

[warpc0il]

Just in case anyone stumbles across this thread, as I did, looking for a solution...

 

I tried this and it seems to work.

Open the file in Notepad, Select All, Delete and Save.
Open file properties and tick Read Only.
File remains on the system by stays at zero bytes.

Note that you also need to tell Ccleaner not to delete this file, otherwise it will by default and Windows will recreate the full size version.

[Andavari]

Yeah I do that zero bytes trick on USB Flash Drives to completely disable System Volume Information and it works like magic. Getting a little creative with Fsutil it can create zero bytes files.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Andavari
Too much info.