Remove unnecessary things from "Windows Live Contacts"

[KACY5]

I am running Windows XP Pro SP3 and I use Windows Live Messenger v.14.0.8064.0206. I started a little cleaning of my system. While doing so I found the size of the hidden folder "Windows Live Contacts" is very large (2GB) for someone who has only 10 contacts. Here is the path of the file: "C:\Documents and Settings\KACY5\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft". I would like to reduce the size by removing unnecessary things in it but how? I do not know what is the useless thing it contains. Can anyone help me in this matter?

[Macarenas]

Even I have the same version of Windows Live Messenger at my home, but my folder is only of 5 MB (and yes I'm having only 2 contacts), it consists of 2 files on behalf of these 2 contacts with sub-folder "real" and "shadow", and a desktop file. Can you tell us which is large in all that?

[KACY5]

I have no file or folder that you listed. In fact there are 93 files (22 MB on average) whose names are of this style (cea88672-e86b-4bd9-9d08-ff68a78ab48c). Each of these consists of a sub-folder named "DBStore" which itself contains two sub-folders named "Backup" and "LogFiles" and 3 files ("contacts.edb", "contacts.pat" and "dbstore.ini").

The subfolder "DBStore" and everything in it are folders and files protected by operating system. You must uncheck "Hide protected files System operating" from "View" in "Folder Options" to see them.

How can I have a recent Ghost image of my PC, I took the risk to delete the folder "Windows Live Contacts" with the idea that a new folder "Windows Live Contacts" will be created automatically when WLMessenger be launched. Bad idea, very bad idea because when you restart a black screen with the message "Missing operating system" pop-ups.

I still tried to access it in Safe mode, but still "Missing operating system".

[Glenny]

Missing operating system

This issue may occur if one or more of the following conditions are true:

• The basic input/output system (BIOS) does not detect the hard disk.
• The hard disk is damaged.
• Sector 0 of the physical hard disk drive has an incorrect or malformed master boot record (MBR).
  

  Note: Some third-party programs or disk corruption can damage an MBR.

• An incompatible partition is marked as Active.
• A partition that contains the MBR is no longer active.

To resolve this issue, use fixmbr command in the Windows XP Recovery Console to repair the MBR of the startup partition.