"If you can't see the bright side of life, polish the dull side."
Clean-up & Free-up your -
Computer Hard Drive
Steps!
Part 2
Clean-up and free-up your Computer
Hard Drive; part 2.
By Raymond Garcia
WebTechGeek.com
Cleaning-up and free-up
your Computer Hard Drive in Windows XP!
Cleaning-up & Tuning-up Your Hard Disk's
Performance In Windows XP
One of the most effective way to speed up most Windows
computer systems, short of adding a super fast hard drive
or more memory, is for you to optimize your hard disk.
Try using these two free Windows utilities:
* Disk Defragmenter The most important
Windows tuning program is the Disk Defragmenter. As it
defragments your disk, this program can also rearrange
your executable programs so they can start and run faster.
* Disk Cleanup As time passes, your
computer's hard disk gathers junk such as unneeded files.
Windows slows down and may act strangely if too many of
these unneeded files have accumulated, especially if they
are in your temporary storage folder (usually C:\Documents
And Settings\user name\Local Settings\Temp). The Disk
Cleanup utility deletes these troublesome files.
Tip: One of the biggest space waster
of the bunch is Internet Explorer, which is usually configured
to occupy as much as 100MB of your hard disk with temporary
files. Two options can help to reduce this waste. First,
reduce the amount of space that Internet Explorer uses
for its temporary files. Choose Start> Control Panel>
Network And Internet Connections and open the Internet
Options icon. Or choose Tools> Internet Options from
the Internet Explorer menu bar.
Go to the General tab of the Internet Properties dialog
box. In the Temporary Internet Files section of the dialog
box, click the Settings button and reduce the space allocation
to something more reasonable, like 40 to 60MB. Click OK.
Now click the Advanced tab and scroll down to the Security
section of the settings. Select the Empty Temporary Internet
Files Folder When Browser Is Closed check box to tell
Internet Explorer to remove all old files automatically. Cleaning-up and free-up your Computer Hard Drive in Windows XP.
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Here's how to run Disk Cleanup in Windows XP:
1. Choose Start> All Programs> Accessories>
System Tools> Disk Cleanup.
2. The Disk Cleanup program runs and asks which disk
you want to clean up. Choose a disk drive and click OK.
The Disk Cleanup window, tells you how much disk space
you can reclaim by deleting temporary files right now.
Of course, this may include temporary files that your
programs are currently using!
3. Click the box for each type of temporary file you
want Disk Cleanup to delete. For more information on a
type of temporary file, click the description; the program
displays an explanation of what the files are and what
folders Disk Cleanup will delete them from.
4. For additional options, click the More Options tab.
Three buttons provide other ways to free up disk space,
including deleting Windows components you don't use, uninstalling
programs, and reducing the amount of space used by the
System Restore program. Click the corresponding button
to try any of these methods.
5. If you want to see the names of the files that will
be deleted in a separate Explorer window, select the type
of files to be deleted and click the View Files button.
6. To begin deleting files, click OK. The program asks
whether you are sure you want to delete files. Click Yes.
The programs shown on the More Options tab that can free
up disk space are one-time operations. If you schedule
the Disk Cleanup program to run on a regular basis using
Scheduled Tasks, these other programs do not run. Cleaning-up and free-up your Computer Hard Drive in Windows XP.
You can deleting files regularly;
You can use Scheduled Tasks program to tell Windows to
run the Disk Cleanup program regularly. If you use Scheduled
Tasks to schedule running the program, be sure to run
Disk Cleanup once following the steps in the preceding
section so that you can choose the types of files to delete.
When you run Disk Cleanup, be sure to include the Temporary
Files in the Files To Delete list. Windows stores most
temporary files in the C:\Documents And Settings\username\Local
Settings\Temp folder, although a few may end up in the
C:\Windows\Temp folder (if you installed Windows in a
different folder, they are in the Temp folder wherever
Windows is installed). Windows can become confused if
this folder contains lots of temporary files that should
have been deleted automatically but weren't. Cleaning-up and free-up your Computer Hard Drive in Windows XP.
Part 3 - Managing
the Recycle Windows XP Bin
Part 1 - How
To - Clean-up your Computer Hard Drive! - Part 1
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