As some of you may know you can use Internet Explorer to view the contents of webpages, that is, to view the source code of the webpage. Sometimes that’s a nice way to see how someone did something interesting or perhaps just as a learning tool. All you need to do is go to Vide in the menu and choose View Source and Notepad will open and you will be presented with the source code for the page you are currently viewing in Internet Explorer.

Sometimes, however, you will get nothing when you do this. Notepad refuses to open and there is no error message or notification of any problem. Usually this is caused by one of two problems.

1) The environment variable TMP is pointing to an invalid directory or folder. 2) You have too many files in the Temporary Internet Items folder.

While the first one is possible, the most likely source of the problem is the second. The solution is easily implemented; empty the Temporary Internet Items folder. This is much easier than you may be thinking.

1) Start Internet Explorer and click on Tools in the menu and select Internet Options or Right Click on Internet Explorer on your desktop and choose Properties from the submenu. 2) Under the Temporary Internet Files heading about one-third of the way down, click on the Delete Files button. 3) When the confirmation dialog box appears click on the OK button 4) Click on the OK button on the next dialog box. 5) Close any remaining “properties” windows with the OK button.

Depending on how many files you actually have in the Temporary Internet Items folder, this operation will take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. If you are having this issue with viewing the source code of a web page, then the chances are you are going to have a 3-5 minute wait while the files are removed. This operation does not remove cookies from your computer - they too are stored in the Temporary Internet Items folder but you should not need to remove them.

For more Technical Items like this, visit us on the Internet at http://www.tornadocomputers.com.

About the Author:
Ron Merts, Sr. Vice President/CIO for Tornado Computers, Inc.