I am unable to create a new file. UltraEdit will open existing files, but the File - New menu item does not create a new file for me to work with. I have uninstalled and reinstalled UltraEdit multiple times to no avail. Has anybody else experienced this issue? Any suggestions for a solution?
The folder for temporary files is full of subfolders and files and therefore the creation of a new temporary file as UltraEdit requests is denied by the file system. The solution is to cleanup the folder for temporary files.
Solution 1: Using the Windows Disk Cleanup tool
This can be done by using the Windows Disk Cleanup tool (German: Datenträgerbereinigung) which is available on all Windows since Windows 2000 which includes Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10.
There are the Microsoft articles Tips to free up drive space on your PC and Disk cleanup in Windows 10.
But run this tool only when you are sure that all install / uninstall / update operations have finished completely. If your Windows is running already for a long time without a start or restart, for example when using hibernate mode instead of Windows shutdown, restart Windows before making any cleanup.
You can start the tool via Start - (All) Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup.
Confirm drive C if this is the drive which contains the user account settings folder as it is by default. You can later run the tool also on other drives.
On Windows 2000 and Windows XP wait until the tool has scanned the drive for old files (not accessed files in last x months) which can be ZIP compressed perhaps by Windows to get drive space back. This can take a few minutes depending how many files you have on the drive if it is a NTFS formatted partition. Storing files compressed on disk is a feature of NTFS and therefore not available on FAT32 partitions. The feature to compress folders on NTFS partition by Disk Cleanup tool was removed with Windows Vista and so Disk Cleanup of Windows 7 / 8 / 10 don't have this feature anymore.
After the cleanup tool shows its dialog, I suggest first to switch to tab More Options and click on the button Clean Up in the third part named System Restore. That deletes all system restore points except the last one which normally brings you back a few hundred MBs or even GBs depending on how many space you have reserved for the system restore at Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - System Restore - Settings.
Special hint: There is no hourglass mouse pointer when Windows runs the file deletion of system restore points even on Windows 10. You must look on the drive activity LED to see when the process has finished or click on the first tab in the disk cleanup window to get the hourglass mouse pointer displayed while this special cleanup is in progress.
The disk cleanup tool of Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7 and Windows Vista have also such an option, but you must first click on Clean up system files before the second tab with the button to delete older system restore points and shadow copies appears. Or you start the disk cleanup tool immediately as administrator by right clicking on shortcut and using Run as administrator.
Next switch back to the first tab Disk Cleanup. There you should check the options
Because Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin and Temporary Files are by default user specific, all users on the computer should run the tool once per month.
It's also a good idea to additionally delete manually all files and subdirectories in C:\Windows\Temp (exactly %SystemRoot%\Temp). The temporary files currently in use cannot be deleted, simply ignore them and delete all other. And Windows users with an HDD should delete also once per month (best after the automatic Windows security updates are executed and Windows has restarted) the files in C:\Windows\Prefetch. Windows users with an SSD as system drive don't need to do that as prefetching is disabled by Windows 7 / 8 / 10 on SSD because this is contra-productive on solid state drives.
After the deletion of all the temporary files, it is a good idea to run the defragmentation tool of Windows, except an SSD is used instead of an HDD. You should close all applications before running Start - (All) Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Defragmenter.
Special hint for starting Windows Disk Cleanup tool much faster on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. If you are 100% sure you will never compress old files on your NTFS drives, you can decrease the startup time of the Disk Cleanup tool dramatically, if you do following:
Solution 2: Manually cleaning the folder(s) for temporary files
Another method for quickly cleaning only the 2 folders for temporary files is as follows:
Solution 1: Using the Windows Disk Cleanup tool
This can be done by using the Windows Disk Cleanup tool (German: Datenträgerbereinigung) which is available on all Windows since Windows 2000 which includes Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10.
There are the Microsoft articles Tips to free up drive space on your PC and Disk cleanup in Windows 10.
But run this tool only when you are sure that all install / uninstall / update operations have finished completely. If your Windows is running already for a long time without a start or restart, for example when using hibernate mode instead of Windows shutdown, restart Windows before making any cleanup.
You can start the tool via Start - (All) Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup.
Confirm drive C if this is the drive which contains the user account settings folder as it is by default. You can later run the tool also on other drives.
On Windows 2000 and Windows XP wait until the tool has scanned the drive for old files (not accessed files in last x months) which can be ZIP compressed perhaps by Windows to get drive space back. This can take a few minutes depending how many files you have on the drive if it is a NTFS formatted partition. Storing files compressed on disk is a feature of NTFS and therefore not available on FAT32 partitions. The feature to compress folders on NTFS partition by Disk Cleanup tool was removed with Windows Vista and so Disk Cleanup of Windows 7 / 8 / 10 don't have this feature anymore.
After the cleanup tool shows its dialog, I suggest first to switch to tab More Options and click on the button Clean Up in the third part named System Restore. That deletes all system restore points except the last one which normally brings you back a few hundred MBs or even GBs depending on how many space you have reserved for the system restore at Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - System Restore - Settings.
Special hint: There is no hourglass mouse pointer when Windows runs the file deletion of system restore points even on Windows 10. You must look on the drive activity LED to see when the process has finished or click on the first tab in the disk cleanup window to get the hourglass mouse pointer displayed while this special cleanup is in progress.
The disk cleanup tool of Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7 and Windows Vista have also such an option, but you must first click on Clean up system files before the second tab with the button to delete older system restore points and shadow copies appears. Or you start the disk cleanup tool immediately as administrator by right clicking on shortcut and using Run as administrator.
Next switch back to the first tab Disk Cleanup. There you should check the options
- Temporary Internet Files - thousands of files, always good to delete it regularly - the reserved disk space for temporary internet files can be also adjusted in the Internet Options of Internet Explorer, although I think the limitation is not really working.
- Recyle Bin - the reserved disk space can be also adjusted - see properties of the recycle bin on desktop shortcut.
- Temporary Files - the files in the user account related folder for temporary files as specified by environment variable TEMP.
Because Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin and Temporary Files are by default user specific, all users on the computer should run the tool once per month.
It's also a good idea to additionally delete manually all files and subdirectories in C:\Windows\Temp (exactly %SystemRoot%\Temp). The temporary files currently in use cannot be deleted, simply ignore them and delete all other. And Windows users with an HDD should delete also once per month (best after the automatic Windows security updates are executed and Windows has restarted) the files in C:\Windows\Prefetch. Windows users with an SSD as system drive don't need to do that as prefetching is disabled by Windows 7 / 8 / 10 on SSD because this is contra-productive on solid state drives.
After the deletion of all the temporary files, it is a good idea to run the defragmentation tool of Windows, except an SSD is used instead of an HDD. You should close all applications before running Start - (All) Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Defragmenter.
Special hint for starting Windows Disk Cleanup tool much faster on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. If you are 100% sure you will never compress old files on your NTFS drives, you can decrease the startup time of the Disk Cleanup tool dramatically, if you do following:
- Open a new ASCII file in UltraEdit.
- Copy and paste following lines into this new file.
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Compress Old Files]
- Save the file anywhere with any name, but with extension .reg, for example RemoveCompressOldFilesFeature.reg.
- Double click on this registry file to run Regedit which will ask if you really want to import this file into your registry. Confirm it with OK.
- Regedit will now delete that key from your Windows registry. Important: You need administrator privileges to do that.
- Delete the registry file as you don't need it anymore.
Solution 2: Manually cleaning the folder(s) for temporary files
Another method for quickly cleaning only the 2 folders for temporary files is as follows:
- Restart Windows to make sure that all installs/uninstalls including silent security and application updates are completed. This is important as files currently in use cannot be replaced during an update process and therefore are temporarily stored in the folder for temporary files and are registered for replacing the files to update in Windows registry on next reboot of Windows.
- After restart of Windows open Windows Explorer, enter into the address bar %TEMP% and hit key RETURN.
- Select in the temporary files folder of current user account with Ctrl+A all files and subfolders and press Shift+Del to delete all of them. The files currently in use by applications and processes started automatically on Windows startup cannot be deleted. Deselect those files and press again Shift+Del to delete the remaining files. If necessary redo this step until all files and subfolders are deleted except those currently in use.
- Next enter into the address bar of Windows Explorer %SystemRoot%\Temp and hit key RETURN.
- This folder is for processes, setups and updates running under system account instead of current user account. The files and subfolders in this directory should be deleted also for a complete cleanup of temporary files. But for this task you need administrator privileges which is the reason why the Disk Cleanup tool never deletes files and subfolders in this folder.
