Every time I boot up my computer, I'm noticing two .tmp files pop up in my C drive, and they have no data written to them. I've been puzzled about what might be causing this, especially since I haven't installed anything new in almost a year. Everything I've downloaded has been from reputable sources, and I even double-check with VirusTotal before installation. I can delete these files, but they just come back every time I restart. Does anyone have an idea of what could be creating these files?
2 Answers
Have you tried using Procmon from Sysinternals? It's a nifty tool that tracks processes on boot-up. Just set it to ‘boot mode’ and you can log everything happening as your PC starts. This way, you can pinpoint what’s creating those .tmp files. Just remember to turn off the boot mode later; that log file can grow really large! But once you start using it, you might find those shortcuts really useful.
If you think there's malware at play here, definitely check out a malware guide for help. But if you're just looking for answers, sometimes those .tmp files are left behind by software that acts a bit buggy or has some bad coding. In your case, it sounds like they’re linked to your game launchers, and you've already figured that out! It’s always good to stay cautious, though.
Thanks for the suggestion! I actually found out that the .tmp files were created by my two Minecraft mod launchers. Once I disabled their auto-start feature, the files stopped appearing. It was quite amusing to see the files appear right as I launched them—looks like the coding isn’t great on those launchers!