Large Files in AppData\Ro​aming\Micr​osoft\Wind​ows\Recent with Matlab R2010b

Hello,

at one of our Users Profile, Matlab creates large files in the Folder for recent items (more than 2GB). Those files disrupt the log in and the User gets aa temporary Profile. Had someone else experience with this or has someone an idea to avoid the problem.

Thanks and regards

Andre

Answer 1

[Mathias]

I know this is an old topic, but I could not find this issue described (or even answered) elsewhere on the Internet. Also the issue is still present with more recent Matlab versions (i.e. 2014a and 2012a).

So the answer is: This problem occurs because .mat files are per default associated with MS Access as being a "Micrsoft Access Table Shortcut ". When files are opened, Windows creates shortcuts to these files, which per default are stored in %appdata%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\ . Since .mat files are considered being Shortcuts, they are simply copied there no matter what their true fielsize is. Consequently, these files clog the user roaming profile.

I can provide two solutions for this:

• Either prevent the recent folder to be synchronized with the roaming profile. A side-effect of this will be that users don't see their last used files when they log on to different computers.
• Alternatively the file association may be changed to Matlab. This solves the problem, as Windows will then only place shortcuts to recently opened .mat files in the roaming proile.

Both solutions can be applied via GPO in a Active Directory enviroment.