Windows 10 Internet Explorer Content.IE5 folder, unable to access.

Windows 10 Internet Explorer Content.IE5 folder is a shortcut and unable to access.

I upgraded my laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10 around November 15, 2019. I ran into problems with Edge internet web browser when trying to copy over the Favorites from Windows 7 Internet Explorer to Edge. Also, I could not find the Temporary Internet Files or the Favorites file for Edge. I found out later that there is an Edge database that you import and export Favorites to. Because of this I switched back to Internet Explorer.

Everything was going along well until I tried to open my “Content.IE5” folder in the “Temporary Internet Files” folder. I received an error message:
“Location is not available”, “E:\User1\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5” “is not accessible.” Access is denied.

I noticed that in Windows 10 the “Content.IE5” folder was a shortcut to the true location of the “Content.IE5” folder. In Windows 7 the “Content.IE5” folder was in its true location and not a shortcut to a location.

I create a drive for the “Temporary Internet Files”folders of all users on the laptop along with Windows “Temp” folder, so I then can delete files or folders if and when I want to.

I need to know if the “Content.IE5” folder in Windows 10 is a shortcut to a folder that will contain other folders that contain internet information and pages like in Windows 7, or is it just a dummy location that will never contain internet information.

The reason I ask is that if I delete the “Content.IE5” folder in Windows 10 I will just delete the shortcut and not the actual folder and sub-folders.

Thanks in advance for the help.

wspozzi said:

Windows 10 Internet Explorer Content.IE5 folder is a shortcut and unable to access.... I received an error message:
“Location is not available”, “E:\User1\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5” “is not accessible.” Access is denied.

Content.IE5 is not a shortcut, it is a Junction.

A hard link is the file system representation of a file by which more than one path references a single file in the same volume....

.... A junction (also called a soft link) differs from a hard link in that the storage objects it references are separate directories, and a junction can link directories located on different local volumes on the same computer. Otherwise, junctions operate identically to hard links. Junctions are implemented through reparse points.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...-and-junctions

So, your Content.IE5 is actually there for backward compatibility with older software that expects to find it. Similar junctions are found in your Documents folder for similar reasons (My Music, My Pictures, My Videos). You can probably guess where those junctions link to, but to see where Content.IE5 is linked to you need to use a command prompt.

It's actually a link to your ...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\IE folder.

Bree, I want to thank you for your reply and information. I’m sort of a newbie and didn’t know anything about links, hard or soft. I followed the highlighted markers to find out more about them. I used your “command prompt” example to find where my junction was pointing to.

First I should give you some history of how my laptop is setup.
I have the C-Drive for MS operating system. Also has Administrator user that comes with system. See attachment 1.
I moved the User’s Temporary Internet Files to my E-Drive.
I used Kari’s procedure to move the Users folder to my F-Drive.

I tried to follow your example to find out where my Content.IE5 was, but when I entered
“cd F:\Users\CPozzi\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache”
and then entered “dir /a:h”
The response back only showed the “Virtualized” directory. See attachment 2.

I then went to the E-Drive and entered “cd E:\CPozzi\Temporary Internet Files”
and then entered “dir /a:h”
The response back was like your example and the junction for Content.IE5 indicated that it was a link back to E:\CPozzi\Temporary Internet Files\IE which is the directory just below the junction Content.IE5. See attachment 3.

Mine is different because of the Folder moves that I did. It indicates to me that if I delete all the folders and files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, I will get rid of all the temporary internet files and pages the system stores. The folders and files will be recreated when I enter Internet Explorer again.

Is my thinking right?
Thanks again!

wspozzi said:

...the junction for Content.IE5 indicated that it was a link back to E:\CPozzi\Temporary Internet Files\IE which is the directory just below the junction Content.IE5.

Mine is different because of the Folder moves that I did. It indicates to me that if I delete all the folders and files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, I will get rid of all the temporary internet files and pages the system stores. The folders and files will be recreated when I enter Internet Explorer again
Is my thinking right?

Mine is unchanged from the standard location on C:. I have just run Disk Clean up to clean up temporary internet files. It deleted all those files and folders in the ...\Temporary Internet Files\IE folder and created a zero byte containers.dat file.

Yes. It's safe to delete all the files and folders in your ...\Temporary Internet Files\IE folder. It will have the same effect as running Disk Clean up, with the exception that containers.dat will not be created until the next time you run IE or Edge (both use the same temporary internet files location).