# C:\Windows\CSC??



## PG Croat

I had an employee tell me he was getting a message that he was low on harddrive space. So I went to do the usual clean up which also consists of using TreeSize to see which folders are taking up the most space. After doing a scan I noticed that a folder called CSC, located in C:\WINDOWS, was taking up the vast majority of space. About 79% of the space to be exact. 

I realize that this is a folder for Offline Files so I went into folder options and deleted offline files but that only released ~10GB which gave him 24% free space. This hasn't even dented the CSC folder, in fact if I explore that folder myself I see that there are severl folders labelled d1 through to d8, each being about 7GB in size, with several files labelled in numeric fashion( ie 00000A38 ). However, when I go to Tools>Folder Options and select the Offline folder tab again, this time selecting to view the files, there are no files to view. Not only that, the Offline file caching is set to only use up 10%, clearly its not following the settings.

I then decided to defrag his harddrive and could see while I was doing this that within the span of roughly 2 hours the free space dropped from 24% to 16%. This rapid drop stopped once I stopped performing the defrag.

What is going on with the CSC file? It doesn't seem to be a virus, I've scanned the computer for that using CA's E-trust anti-virus and found nothing. It seems as though something is set to cache far too many files and I'm not sure how to clean up the CSC folder or if its even safe to do so.

Has anybody come accross this before?


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## Eremon1

CSC stands for client-side caching and is another term for offline file sharing. That computer would seem to be in a network environment and the other systems are caching files on the system. <in the CSC folder>

Here is something you may find helpful in your case;



> Deleting Offline Files and Folders
> 
> You can use two methods to safely remove offline files from the cache without affecting network files or folders. You can delete selected files from the Offline Files folder, or you can delete all files associated with a particular network share by using the Delete Files feature from the Offline Files property page. Do not directly delete or move any files from the systemroot\CSC folder.
> Deleting Files from the Offline Files Folder
> 
> You can open the Offline Files Folder and delete files directly from the list of offline files. Deleting a file this way removes it from the cache regardless of whether it was manually or automatically cached.
> 
> Note Deleting files and folders from the cache does not delete the network copy of the file or folder.
> 
> If an offline folder is manually cached and you delete any or all offline files in the folder, the folder remains pinned. All files in the folder are cached the next time a full synchronization occurs.
> To delete files from the cache using the Offline Files Folder
> 
> 1. Click a folder, and then on the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
> 
> 2. On the Offline Files tab, click View Files.
> 
> 3. Click the files you want to delete, and then on the File menu, click Delete.
> 
> In this view of the Offline Files folder, you can see which files are automatically cached (temporarily available offline) and which are manually cached (always available offline). If you delete manually cached folders this way, the folders and files in them are no longer pinned. You need to pin the files or folders to make them available offline again.
> To delete files from the cache on a network share
> 
> 1. Click a shared network folder, and then on the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
> 
> 2. On the Offline Files tab, click Delete Files.
> 
> 3. In the Confirm File Delete dialog box, select the shared folders containing the offline files you want to delete.
> 
> 4. Click Delete only the temporary offline versions if you want to delete files that were automatically cached. Click Delete both the temporary offline versions and the versions that are always available offline if you want to delete files that were automatically cached and files that were manually cached (pinned).
> 
> Files are also deleted from the cache whenever an offline file is deleted by using a normal user path, such as Windows Explorer, My Computer, the Run dialog box, or the command prompt. When users verify that they want to delete a file, the file is removed from the cache. This is not an effective way to clean up the cache because it also deletes files in the shared network folder. However, the files are deleted immediately only if the associated network share is online. If the share is offline, the local copy is deleted and the Synchronization Conflict notification is displayed during the next interactive synchronization.


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## Katelynn7

If that PC is NOT on an Intranet, you can go into your internet settings, click on the advanced tab:

Make sure "Close unused folders in History and Favorites" box is checked.

Uncheck "Enable offline items to be synchronized on a schedule" box.

Uncheck both "Install on demand" boxes...

One other thing you can do to save space is:
Windows> Repair - Click your view menu and select "Details." Total the size of all files then:

Control Panel> System> System Restore> Settings... Depnding on the size of your HD, this allocates space for your Restore Points. Set the % to match appx. the size of the files in the repair folder AND the system files on OS root directory. If your running multiboot, you can set each one separately.


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## PG Croat

Ok, I managed to clear the CSC file. All I did was go into Folder Options, held Shift+Ctrl and then clicked delete files. It cleared up the CSC folder and gave an extra 55GBs of space. I hope I haven't lost anything important though. I suspect they were just ghost files, however.


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## Eremon1

Be sure to let us know how it goes and if you lost anything.


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## certificate18

PG Croat said:


> Ok, I managed to clear the CSC file. All I did was go into Folder Options, held Shift+Ctrl and then clicked delete files. It cleared up the CSC folder and gave an extra 55GBs of space. I hope I haven't lost anything important though. I suspect they were just ghost files, however.


I had the same issue with a user's PC. CSC was storing about 17GB of cache data from 3 years ago....

Note that if Enable Offline Files is unticked, you must enable it before you can reach the Delete Files button.

Also, as noted elsewhere, View Files won't necessarily show you any files, however Ctrl+Shift+Delete Files should clear all but the last 2MB or so of C:\WINDOWS\CSC.

Finally, if Enable Offline Files was unticked when you first looked at it, don't forget to untick it again when you're done. :wink:


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## fla_panther

Hi Guys. Did some searching and found this thread on the topic too:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/f10/c-windows-csc-eating-to-much-hdd-space-211544.html


Unfortunately I've tried all the steps mentioned in both those threads, and the files in my CSC folder are not being deleted. What's strange is - I thought I saw them being deleted before my own eyes, only to have them reappear after a reboot.

What happened was - in one of the 4 different attempts to remove these files - I checked the box to allow Offline Files (it had never been checked previously), then sked to view the files. Then I went back to the other thing and brought the bar down so that it would only have 2% available for offline files. I was about to click the Delete Files button when I noticed activity in the folder that had been opened - I started out with over 2,000 files and they dissapearing... assumably because Windows recognized that I reduced the size allowed for the cache. When it was done there were only about 10 files in the folder. I closed that, hit OK on the other thing, rebooted... checked the CSC folder and everything was still there. I tried some of the other options, but nothing is getting rid of them.

Any other ideas?


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## llsp22

Just wondering if Fla Panther found a resolution? I have tried everything posted here and I still cannot see/delete the files in the csc folder. I have almost no disk space left and really need help! Thank you!


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