The Log File That Almost Ate My Hard Drive

I recently found a HUGE 38 gigabyte log file on my PC, and it was still growing. To give you an idea of how much disk space that is, it's more than all of my teennage daughter's MP3 files combined! The file was tvDebug.log in C:\Windows\Internet Logs. It turns out this file was being created by ZoneAlarm (version 9.1.007.002).

There is no Earthly reason to keep a 38GB log file, and if left to keep growing this file would eventually fill up my hard drive. So i had to get rid of this disk parasite. But the catch is you can't delete this file while ZoneAlarm is running. And even if you shutdown ZoneAlarm to delete the file, it will come back. Here is how i stopped tvDebug.log from eating the hard drive on my Windows XP machine:

[You are going to shutdown ZoneAlarm briefly, thus exposing your computer. Consider unplugging the network cable or disabling the wireless card while performing this procedure.]

1. Hold down the Control and Shift keys then right-click on the ZoneAlarm icon on the right end of the task bar near the clock.



2. Release the Control and Shift keys and left-click on "Set debug level". This will bring up a little Zone Alarm window (see below).


3. Select "Off" under Debug categories and click on the OK button.

4. Right-click on the ZoneAlarm icon again and left-click on "Shutdown ZoneAlarm".

5. Go to the C:\Windows\Internet Logs folder and delete the file tvDebug.log.

6. Restart ZoneAlarm (Start >> Programs >> ZoneAlarm >> ZoneAlarm Security).

7. If you look in the C:\Windows\Internet Logs folder again, you will see the tvDebug.log file has come back, but it should be tiny and not grow anymore. To be safe, check it again tomorrow.