viewing pics

[musicfreak]

Yes you can, but it will be worth less if you do.


Tech people have better things to do than search peoples hard drives for deleted pictures. Unless they already know they're there, why would they even look? The Internet is full of porn they can get much more easily.

That's what I figure. Like they really have time but you know my paranoia is setting in.


With fingernail clippers? You can see the thumbnails file in the directory if you set your windows explorer options to display hidden files (or is it operating system files?). Just delete them.

Great. Thanks. Can you give me step by step directions on how to get to the thumbnails? I don't quite get what you mean. I did do a search in the 'Start Search' and put in "thumnails" and found a file of pics......that should be them right? So hopefully I've found them all? Yikes!

Jerks are jerks. Send the pics to me and I'll treat them right. Just kidding - please don't send them to me. I don't want them, and my wife would NOT be happy about it anyway.

No way! I've learnt my lesson!

Make sure to use the CCleaner "Secure Deletion" option if you use it. This will overwrite the data on the hard drive 1 to 7 times depending on the settings you use. You might also try Eraser.

When you say overwrite the data does that mean I will lose things I have in my Document folder and emails etc.?

Thanks for your help!

[howste]

When you say overwrite the data does that mean I will lose things I have in my Document folder and emails etc.?

Nope. It will delete what you tell it to delete.

[musicfreak]

So did I find all the thumbnails? Just making sure.

[howste]

The thumbnails are in a file called thumbs.db.

[musicfreak]

Can you tell me how to get to this file? I can't find it.

I can only find .thumbnails by doing a search at the Start. When I open the .thumbnails file there is another file called Normal and they are all inside there. If I do the same for thumbs.db I get nothing. I use Windows Vista 64 Bit Home Premium. I just want to make sure what I found is all there is and not anywhere else such as this other file you are talking about.

Sorry to bother you.

[howste]

Doh! After Windows XP there aren't thumbs.db files any more. The files in Vista are stored in this directory:

\Users\[User Account Name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Inside the folder, there should be files named something like thumbcache_xxxx.db.

[musicfreak]

Doh! After Windows XP there aren't thumbs.db files any more. The files in Vista are stored in this directory:

\Users\[User Account Name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Inside the folder, there should be files named something like thumbcache_xxxx.db.

OK, I couldn't find it as you described (was going no where) so did a search for AppData and was able to locate them so will delete those.

What is the .thumbnails folder then? I will delete it anyway, but was just curious. All my pics are there.

[howste]

If you found them then I wouldn't worry about them being somewhere else.

[musicfreak]

Thanks very much!

[musicfreak]

Howste,

I have another question. These pics were sent to Yahoo mail. When you open the email you can see the pics as a thumbnail (I guess you call it that, it's just a small snapshot). You have the option to view them as a slide show within Yahoo mail or Download them. If you don't download and just view them as a slide show, then they won't be that traceable on the computer will they? Cause you need a password to get at them cause they're in someone's account right? If you try and click on that link in your History or Temporary internet files it probably just takes you to the Yahoo sign in page. Right?

When you 'Download' it for sure it will leave a viewable file on your computer right? You're not downloading to an actual folder on your computer though, it just allows you to use a 'viewer' to view it in a bigger size...for instance I use Windows Photo Gallery viewer.

[howste]

All pictures viewed in a web browser (even thumbnails and slide shows) are stored in the temporary files on the computer's hard drive. If someone goes to where the temporary files are stored and opens the files they will see the pictures. If someone goes to the history in the browser and tries to open the page it should ask them to log in.

[musicfreak]

OK, thank you!

[bigBonehead]

Lesson Learned?

[musicfreak]

No doubt. You can't trust anyone. You think you have a nice guy and find out he's nothing but a dirt bag!

[bigBonehead]

Women are from Venus / Men are from Mars...

[musicfreak]

Women are from Venus / Men are from Mars...

Doesn't mean guys have to be douche bags though!

[musicfreak]

@Howste

I found the thumbnail cache files (6 of them) you mentioned (you said thumbcache_xxxx.db....but I only had 2 numbers where the xxxx is if that matters). Anyway I went to delete the files and it says I need permission. How the heck do I do that? I'm the only administrator for this computer.

Also I have a file called .thumbnails and when I open it up there is a Normal file and inside that is a bunch of thumbnails. I wanted to see if the thumbnail cache you spoke of would delete these if I deleted the thumbnail cache folders but since I'm having problems I wanted to delete these pics in this folder anyway. I could delete them one by one but it's tedious. So I found out there is an option to delete thumbnails through Disk Clean up. (I'm using Windows Vista 64 Bit). When I check off Temporary Internet Files or Thumbnails there is a grey check mark and when I delete nothing happens. The KB is the same, or it will change to a lower amount but then it comes back again. Why won't it go to 0 and delete everything? The thumbnails are still there.

[ShyguyXPC]

soooo.... your going to revive a thread after 5.5 Months just to quote someones posting?

[paul9]

Nah, the thread was reopened to slip in some spam.
Spam removed and spammer banned.

[JEROY]

I always advise my customers : don't think your Pc is a safe treasury . Don't trust your passwords and Never put valuable infos ... Whatever precautions or security you might take surely will face higher preaches from hackers and hacking programs ..

When companies threw their computers , they destroy the Hard disks .. It's the only safe measure .