Files are placed on your computer by every web site, every program, & every thing you do on the computer, just opening a file creates a record.
There are a number of expensive programs that offer to clean up these files & cost anywhere from $19.99 to $129.99 but do nothing more than you could do manually in a couple of munutes....IF you know how.

Before even beginning your search to clean dah hazowwwse, you'll need to open your Windows Explorer, (the directory search window, not IE), & go to the
Tools>Folder Options>View(tab)
then look in the white window for the Files and Folders, (1st), catagory.

Check the first three check boxes (optional):
"Display compressed files and folders with alternate color"
"Display the full path in the address bar"
"Display the full path in title bar"

NEXT (mandatory):

Under Files and Folders, move the dot in the
"Do not show hidden files and folders"
to the one immediately under it,
"Show hidden files and folders"
by clicking on the little button on the left of that.

Make sure to UNCHECK the next 2 square boxes,
"Hide file extensions for known file types"
&
"Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)"

A word of cauton here, doing this makes hidden files appear. When they were hidden, you got a warning when attempting to delete such files and folders. They also would not copy when you attempted to copy everything in a folder containing them.
Making this change makes it possible AND highly likely at some point you WILL accidentally delete a critical file, so change it all back when you are done - to protect against accidental deletion of critical system files.
Do NOT at your own risk!


List of places to look:
(You should be in administrator mode to do all of this if you want complete access, otherwise you'll only be able to open your own username's files.)

C:\Documents and Settings\(Your user name on the computer)

java: (see jpi cache)
jpi cache: neked pictures from that "LIVE" nude chat "Valentine's day" site or any site that loads a java applet end up here PERMANENTLY sometimes, clear it all out.

Application Data: there are a host of individual application subfolders & caches here, a lot of what you do gets saved in these for faster implimentation the next time you open that program. Clean house carefully but don't be surprised if something doesn't work on a program next time. CAUTION is advised, if you don't know what it is, your wife won't either.
Your bookmarks.htm for Firefox/Netscape are in the profiles\username subfolder under Mozilla btw. It IS editable, save a copy, make the changes & close. If you screw up, simply copy the copy back to the subfolder & repeat til ya git it right.

Cookies: self explanitory...if you know what cookies are.

Desktop: a list of some of the programs on your desktop, the startup folder, & some of the shortcuts on the desktop are here.

Favorites: IE related bookmarking. It relates to the "Favorites" button on your browser menus.

Here's the reason I had you change those "Hidden" settings, normally, this subfolder is "hidden".
C:\Documents and Settings\(Your user name on the computer)\Local Settings\

Application Data: this is just like the Application Data folder in the next level up but individuallized just for your username.

History: this is where the history of all the sites you visit gets stored. Each day's entry may contain a plethera of sites under any given day, or it may contain only a few or none.
Only days of the current week have files nmed by day, then they get consolidated into weekly files. Not all sites you visit end up recorded here but most do, a lot depends on the coding of the web site, cookies, & some other factors I know nothing about.
You can bet microsoft does though, since they mine this for data concerning usage every time DW15.EXE phones home or you visit updates. (more about DW15.EXE and DW20.EXE later.)
There is a subfolder here that isn't visible when you are using the ID, you can see it in any other ID if you look in them, it's named "Content.IE5".
When you go to clean the history folder, you can use the "EDIT>Select all" and "File>Delete" menu commands - (Ed>Sel/F>Del), without fear - although it deletes the "Content.IE5" subfolder & the "Today" subfolder, they are immediately & automatically restored. No danger of losing them at all.

Temp: main storage site for the files an application needs to install itself. They are supposed to delete themselves after installation but software writers get lazy sometimes & they don't.
This folder & the next one, "Temporary Internet Files", (T-I-F), are where web sites place a lot of what you see when browsing. It's really hit or miss & up to the web site designers if those files end up here or in the T-I-F folder, you don't really get any say in it.
You can safely delete ANYTHING in this folder, just don't delete the folder itself. I empty it daily with the Ed>Sel/F>Del clicks, it makes it pretty fast & pretty simple to keep clean. It also speeds up your computer to do so frequently. These files have a habit of clogging up your RAM space.
Not only files end up here & sometimes don't delete, whole folders can be created by programs like Adobe. It doesn't matter who created what, delete EVERYTHING! except the folder itself.
If you have web pages open, you may get a "cannot delete blah blah" notice, simply use the Ctrl key & left click it to unhi-lite the offending file(s), (it'll be the first one(s) in line when you get the notice), then hit F>Del again. Once the web page or program that was using the file(s) is closed, you can delete it/those as well.

Temporary Internet Files: a couple things happen here. Web site operations deposit a number of smaller individual files on your computer so you can see it & interact on it. They get stored temporarily, (supposedly), here & disappear when you close the browser, (if you have set the Internet options for IE to do so in the property sheet for IE on the first tab). Sometimes something goes wrong & they don't disappear, that's where the manual Ed>Sel/F>Del comes in.

In the T-I-F folder itself, another set of cookies set themselves up. (and you thought they were gone ).
There is another one of those "Content.IE5" subfolders here, just like in "History", the difference is, this one is readily visible to you even while logged on in that username, (unlike "History\Content.IE5").
It has the same ability to regenerate itself when deleted, so don't be afraid to use the Ed>Sel/F>Del functions to speed things up.

There is another difference from the "History" version as well, there are subfolders under "Content.IE5" here. There are 4 of them by default, but heavy browser use can create many many more if needed. I've seen as many as 16 or more on my own machine, but I'm a browser abuser & often open as many as 40 or 50 windows at the same time.
The have weird names like 09YB45YF or CPABGPUB. I don't think they have any rhyme or reason in naming them, but I can't swear to that.
When you visit a web site, portions of the files needed to see the web site get placed in these subfolders, not all the parts end up in the same subfolder either, they can be spread out in several at the same time.

When you view a streaming video application, the file downloads itself and places a copy in one of these subfolders, that allows you to play them back. If you go in them & copy the .mpg, .rms, .avi, .mp3, .wmv, .asx, .wma, (or any of many formats), temporary files before you close the browser & they get deleted automatically, you can move or copy & save them permanently. I get a lot of free music & videos this way, the web site owner thinks they will disappear once you leave. Little do they know, I just got a permanent copy.

You can safely use the Ed>Sel/F>Del quickie way to clear ALL of this by clicking on "Content.IE5" and disappearing the lot. Windows will automatically restore the "Content.IE5", the weird named subfolders, (4 by default), & you'll be up & running again as though you had individually opened each weird subfolder & manually deleted each subfolder's contents one by one.

C:\Documents and Settings\(Your user name on the computer)\

Recent (or Recent Files in Xpeepee): this folder is used by Windows to keep track of all the files and folders you open on your computer. Open C:\Adobe, a shortcut- 4 Kb in size - is instantly created in this folder. Over time it can get filled with thousands of shortcut files. I once cleaned my mother-in-law's old Pentium 75 with a 3.2 GB hard drive out & this folder had more than 33,000 shortcut files in it! That's only 129 MB but, on a 3.2 GB hard drive, it's a substantial percentage of storage space going to waste.

C:\Program Files\Installshield Installation Information: this folder contains setup files for some programs you may have installed in the past, if either the programmer or you elected to "save installer files locally". If you've rebooted since installing the programs, go ahead & delete everything in this folder to clean up useless files. These files, if run, will actually attempt to reinstall the same program that originally put them here.

OPTIONAL FOLDERS TO CLEAN UP

C:\WINNT or C:\Windows (for Xpeepee):

Downloaded Installations: these are programs you may have had a web site install immediately after downloading them by choosing the "download and install" option. If you were smart, you wouldn't have done that, but even genius boy here does it occassionally. Sometimes a program's supplier gives you no other options, it's a form of copyright protection to deliver the necessary program files but not include an installer with them.

Of course, one could always round up these files and place them in a targa installer & write the necessary instruction set as to where each file should go, but that's probably why you allowed it to install itself in the first place - either you lack the requisite knowledge or are too damn lazy to do so.

Downloaded Program Files: these are those "object" programs you can see in the IE property sheet onthe first tab, General>Temporary Internet Files>Settings>View Objects.
They are generally java applets that enable specific little programs to run on your computer to make use of a service or web site. Examples are the Yahoo! chat applets and their webcam applets to view other webcams or show your own. Other types are microsoft's WU WebUpdater control applet, other java runtime routines, and any site that requires you to run a control applet while you are on their site.
For the most part, deleting them is harmless, you can always reload them by revisiting the site you originally got them on.
Occassionally, a harmful or malicious applet can get installed here. If your computer is doing weird shit, try deleting any unrecognised applets or "objects" from this folder or through the path listed above on the IE properties sheet. An example would be a browser search engine that redirects you to a specific site to look for programs, they are forcing you to use their website to earn income from people who pay for advertising based on hits on that website.

DW15.EXE and/or DW20.EXE: hang on, I got summin to do, bbiab.

Awesome, thanks. I will have to go through the guide when I get the time.

I wish to thank Wu for opening up this help topic and allowing me to complete it and recover the thing for my own records. I had a power failure and failed to save a copy for myself. Thank You Wu.

[EDIT]...10-19-06
One item I forgot to discuss in the original post was index.dat files on the computer.
On the computer in various locations, there are files labeled "index.dat".
These files store a record of various things depending on their location.
In the Cookies folder they list web sites you have visited, by cookie names for web addresses.
In the History folder they list some stuff you did on the computer.
In the Temp folders they record web sites you have visited.
In the Recent folder, they list items on the computer you have recently viewed.
In Program Files, they record the changes to the program you have made.
By and large these are fairly innocuous data mining files but they can be used to find out what and where you have been on the computer if not managed regularly.

To delete one, you cannot be using that user name on the computer, M$ has a half dozen different ways to keep you from accidentally or othewise deleting these files.
An Administrator can delete all the index.dat files for every user and all folders on the computer except for it's own profile's. In order to delete the Administrator's index.dat files, you'll have to go into the
Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Local Users and Groups>Users
and create a new seperate backup administrator user that can then be logged into to delete the main Administrator's index.dat files.

There is an alternate way to handle this with some freeware named index.dat.suite [snapfiles.com]
It is freeware, as I said, and very easy to use. It also allows you to actually locate, read, and delete these index files - added bonuses...[/EDIT]


About DW15.EXE & it's updated version DW20.EXE

About 2 years ago, microscoff contracted with a little known spyware company, Desaware, (hence the DW in the name DW15.EXE). Their main claim to fame was a program known as SpyWorks v.6

It's selling points, according to the demo I downloaded for testing under my company's name, was that it was very efficient at collecting or "hooking" any web site a person visited with the browser on their computer, storing it in a file for a while, then periodically making that information available to the vendor who originally embedded the package within whatever the MAIN product they were selling and you bought or downloaded.
The claims the demo made sent shivers up my spine as I read the sales pitch in the help files for SpyWorks. I was so freaked out, (and I'm not given to paranoia as a rule), I started spamming the world with this news. Of course, nobody paid a lick of attention.

You might purchase a program to monitor the stock market in real time, as a part of the installation, the DW15.EXE, or it's equivalent,
(DW15.EXE is an exclusive microsloth ordered "phone home" utility but it works via the SpyWorks programming),
is installed right along with the stock market monitoring software when you click the TOS agreement for the program you actually wanted.

It would have been nice if they mentioned the fact that -a program that was capable of hijacking a browser component and reporting a batch of internet sites visited back to the company you purchased the monitoring program from - was included in the installation, but that would have defeated the purpose, namely, to spy on a person's internet activities in order to custom tailor ads targeting the individual for sales of more products.
"No buyer like an already proven buyer" or so says microshifty and I.

Masquerading as a technical support reporting dll, it really didn't intend to transmit information about your hardware back to the vendor, it was designed to collect and report home with a list of sites you visited. They just didn't want to be nailed by people's fear of trojans, which is exactly what this is.

The part micro$quishy loved so much was the hijacking or "piggybacking out" on a browser component which allowed it to get out of your machine without alerting the firewall that something was being transmitted.
An UNDETECTABLE TROJAN, how lovely, people can't object to something if they don't even know it's there.
Firewalls generally are designed to stop entry, not prevent a program you WANTED to access the web from getting out. Hiding DW15.EXE inside or as a replacement for a dll or exe component of a legitimate browser was the way to lull the firewall, and who knew better how to disguise a trojan as a part of a legitimate browser in Windows?
Uh huh, the makers of the IE browser. A little code sharing and VOILA!, a nice custom "phone home" utility advertised as, (in case anyone was wondering), a technical problem reporting utility.

Have you ever had a microsnuft program go down and a little box comes up asking if you want to send technical information about what you were doing when it crashed, back to microswipe to better solve software problems?
Ya, riiiiiiiiight, and I want ketchup with that bridge deed too, please.

I don't mean to imply microgreed is the only one doing this, many programs like RealPlayer©, for example, do the same thing. DW15.EXE just happens to be microtool's planned trojan.

Micrograb saw a great deal of marketing potential in this as 90% or more of Windows users still use Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and Windows Media Player.
When IE6 was first posted, it was only available for about 45 days before IE6-SP1 replaced it. For those 45 days, you could download IE6 but after that SP1 was released, you couldn't STEAL a copy of IE6 without SP1 for the life of your firstborn child.

Why the rush to update? One reason.....DW15.EXE..... microstuft had decided DRM was the wave of the future and no microsteal product was going to be wasted sitting around when it could be doing double duty, whatever it was supposed to do AND collecting surfing habits of Windows users and sending them back to microsell to package up and sell to vendors for targeting advertising.
Nice!
You surf,
microscrooge collects the info and makes a profit selling it to people who will then place ads where you surf.

Since the best representative sampling had to come from programs EVERYONE was using, IE, WMP, and any microsold hardware implimented this spyware in the program installation of programs that were an integral part and parcel of the Windows OS.

Open your windows directory and look in the top level folder at
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer,
C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player (the version 9 for DW15.EX &, DW20.EXE if you use Xpeepee and WMP10.), and/or
If you use a microfoe mouse that required a set of drivers from a CD, look in the
C:\Program Files\(name of the mouse product, like Wireless Intellimouse Explorer)
Or use the "search for files and folders" function and look for DW15.EXE and/or DW20.EXE on your hard drive once.

Now that you've found it, what to do to shut it down?

Fortunately, that's the EASY part. Since DW15.EXE/DW20.EXE really isn't a legitimate part of any program it comes with, the best way, (and completely harmless to the functioning of the program it came with, btw), is to simply DELETE it.
Isn't that simple?
Yes, I deleted it from WMP9, IE-SP1, and my Wireless Intellimouse folders and waited for something to go wrong. It never did, everything works beautifully without those stupid "phone home" utilities in them.

So now you know.......


.....the rest of the story.
Good Day!

Cool, let's see if they stay deleted...

norton system works, clean sweap does a good job of cleaning out your temporary internet files for those that have it and are too lazy to go through them manually. Also more browsers are comming with ways to delete those temporary internet files

Just found DW15.exe in my Flight Simulator 2004 and Age of Empires 3 folders...but not in WMP...

Quote from mmathis : Just found DW15.exe in my Flight Simulator 2004 and Age of Empires 3 folders...but not in WMP...

mmathis, you strike me as an Xpeepee user, if so, you may be using WMP10, which, once the shight hit the fan over this DW flap, removed the installation.
Not because of pressure to kill trojan phone homes though, but because the European Union sued M$ and made them promise to release Xpeepee as a stand alone without a reliance on a non-removable IE browser and a non-default WMP.
I believe the updated DW20.EXE may be a replacement for DW15.EXE because SpyBot S&D started detecting DW15.EXE and of course, M$ couldn't stop with the greedy bit, so they made it invisible once more to SpyBot S&D.

I suggest looking for DW20.EXE as well, mmathis

Quote from Anonymouse : mmathis, you strike me as an Xpeepee user, if so, you may be using WMP10, which, once the shight hit the fan over this DW flap, removed the installation. Not because of pressure to kill trojan phone homes though, but because the European Union sued M$ and made them promise to release Xpeepee as a stand alone without a reliance on a non-removable IE browser and a non-default WMP. I believe the updated DW20.EXE may be a replacement for DW15.EXE because SpyBot S&D started detecting DW15.EXE and of course, M$ couldn't stop with the greedy bit, so they made it invisible once more to SpyBot S&D. I suggest looking for DW20.EXE as well, mmathis

Yeah, I checked for DW20.exe too, and it only came up in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DW - not IE or WMP

Common files huh?
That's a new one for me. What program do you suppose put it there, one of those games? (I don't do games.)

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DW
"dw20.exe" Microsoft application error reporting
"dwtrig20.exe" Watson subscriber for sens network notifications
"dwdcw20.dll" microsoft event reporting
bunch of other folders that look to contain different language versions of the dll

I Am a former XP user....and HATE microsucks....(I'm on linux now)

one thing you said though

Quote from Anonymouse : Have you ever had a microsnuft program go down and a little box comes up asking if you want to send technical information about what you were doing when it crashed, back to microswipe to better solve software problems? Ya, riiiiiiiiight, and I want ketchup with that bridge deed too, please.

But when I used XP, and something crashed...it did ask if I want to send an error report

To be honest, I have to believe very little of what was posted here about DW15.EXE and the like.
The pure hate of Microsoft was just to plain to see, and it really taints what the posters have to say.
Maybe if the facts where presented without the hate showing through, or at the very least a few links to reputable sources for info..........

Quote from Fun-Gi : To be honest, I have to believe very little of what was posted here about DW15.EXE and the like. The pure hate of Microsoft was just to plain to see, and it really taints what the posters have to say. Maybe if the facts where presented without the hate showing through, or at the very least a few links to reputable sources for info..........

I agree with Fun-Gi