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Clean-up & Free-up your -
Computer Hard Drive
Steps!
Web Tech Support page
Part 1, 2, 3
Spring Cleaning for your PC. Clean-up and free-up your Computer
Hard Drive; part 1. Web Tech Support page!
By Raymond Garcia
WebTechGeek.com
Clean-up and free-up your Computer Hard Drive: One of the most effective way to speed up
your Windows computer systems, short of adding a super
fast hard drive or more memory, is for you to optimize
your hard drive. It can be hard to find what you're looking
for if your hard drive is full of unneeded files. Just
like with your paper filing cabinet, do yourself a big
favor and weed out unnecessary stuff. Here are the step
needed to help you clean-up and free-up your systems hard
drive and reclaim lost of hard drive space.
Here you will find the steps to Managing
Windows XP Recycle Bin. And 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. Plus tips on How to Resizing the Recycle Bin, How
to turn the Recycle Bin off, and How To purge only those
files that have been in the Recycle Bin a long time.
Steps: Applications and Documents
1. First go to your system tools and use disk clean-up,
then open your document and applications folders. Drag
the icons for unneeded documents to the Recycle Bin (Windows
98) or the Trash (Macintosh) or just delete them. Disk
clean-up will do a basic clean-up, but not the best clean-up.
2. Copy documents you want to keep but don't
expect to use often to CDR, floppy disks or other backup
media.
3. Now move these documents to the Recycle
Bin/Trash after you've copied them or delete them.
4. Remember to empty your Recycle Bin/Trash
after you completing all the above steps.
5. You can remove all the old unwanted application
programs by using an good un-installer program. Take a
good look at all those old programs that you haven't used
in a long time, and remove them if you think you don't
need them. In Windows 98/ME, use the Add/Remove control
panel. On the Mac, many program installers include a Remove
option; you need to run the installer again and choose
Remove.
System Folders Tip: Most application
programs typically put files in your Windows or System
folders in addition to what you see in the application
folder itself; that's why un-installer programs are helpful.
Text files don't take up much space on a disk. Sound,
graphics and especially video files take up much more.
Steps: Backup and Temporary Files
1. Most of your programs should clean up
their temporary files by themselves, but sometimes they
don't. Check your folders for file names that begin with
a tilde (~) or end with TMP. Drag them to the Recycle
Bin/Trash or delete them.
2. Check your work and application folders
for backup files whose names end with BAK. Remove these
if you don't need them.
3. Warning - Don't empty the Recycle Bin
or the Trash after completing the above steps.
4. You need to reboot your computer to make
sure you haven't deleted any necessary system file.
5. Now open your applications to make sure
they boot properly if you deleted any files from their
folders.
6. Now if you have no problems starting
Windows and your programs, you can empty the Recycle Bin/Trash.
Otherwise, return files to their original places.
Tip: Programs
use temporary files to store the version of a document
you're currently working on. When you save changes, the
changes made to the temporary file are saved to your disk.
Now is a good time to run Scandisk and Disk defragmenter
in your system tools.
Warnings: Don't make changes to your
system unless you know exactly what you're doing. Only
delete files that you recognize and files that you don't
need. Remember to come back to WebTechGeek.com for more
How To tips!
More software downloads
Part 2 - Cleaning-up
& Tuning Your Hard Disk's Performance In Windows XP
Part 3 - Managing
the Recycle Windows XP Bin
More How To's: Clean Computer Keyboard | How to Optimize Disk Drive Performance
Software to help with your Computer Clean-up: Click Here!
