Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenting. After the installation and optimization of Windows, it is time to clean up. Deleting the unnecessary files, followed. Because some. files are secured, it is not always easy to delete files. But there are still a. Disk Cleanup. There are a lot of files stored on the hard disk during the installation of. Windows and programs, some of them can be deleted safely afterwards (like the.
Windows. old. with the files of the old Windows installation and the history of the browser). Disk Cleanup is. available by right clicking the Windows partition (the C: partition in most.
- Vista, and XP, Disk Cleanup frees disk space by cleaning areas that gather unneeded files. Select from the four areas that Disk Cleanup will check and clean up.
- What Disk Cleanup does is locate files that can easily be removed to free up some disk space. To run Disk Cleanup in Windows 7 and Windows Vista, follow these.
Windows Explorer and select Properties, tab. Disk Cleanup. option Files from all users on this computer. On the first tab select all. Office Setup files. OK. Disk Cleanup does not.
Cleaning Up Your Disk Drives in Windows Vista by William Stanek 03/06/2007. Choose the files to clean up. Program Clean Up helps you free up space by removing programs that you do not use. Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenting. Changing the paging file settings is discussed on the page about optimizing the Windows Vista settings. Computer dictionary definition for what disk cleanup means including related links. Internet Files (associated with Internet Explorer), Downloaded Program Files.
Deleting the browsing history (the temporary internet files and. Internet Options. Control Panel, button Delete, button. Delete cookies. Unfortunately this procedure has to be done.
The most important folders. The most important folders with (possibly. C: \Users\loginname\App. Data\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files. C: \Users\loginname\App. Data\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History. C: \Users\loginname\App.
Data\Local\Temp. C: \Users\loginname\App. Data\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\User. Data\Low. C: \Users\loginname\App. Data\Roaming\Microsoft\Office\Recent. C: \Users\loginname\App. Data\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies. C: \Users\loginname\App.
Data\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent. C: \Windows\Temp. The content of these folders can be deleted manually, therefore it is. Folder Options in the Control.
Panel, tab View). Tools. like IE Privacy Keeper and Active@ Eraser are also able to delete. TIP: By right clicking a folder with. Properties you are able to view how much space can be. By checking the additional free.
For example check the folder with temporary. Disk Cleanup. As you will see. Deleting those invisible temporary internet. Internet Explorer (Tools, Internet Options, tab. General, button Delete). DELETING THE FLASH PLAYER- COOKIESOn many websites flash video is shown for advertising purposes.
To track your. surfing behavior, special Flash cookies are saved which can't be deleted the. To prevent saving Flash cookies in the future, click the. Global Storage Settings Panel and deactivate the option Allow. Flash content to store data on your computer. Deleting the following files and/or folders will save you even more space: C: \HIBERFIL.
SYS (hidden, as big as the available RAM memory)The hibernation file is a copy of the total RAM memory, which is used to recover. Hibernation is especially used for laptop. Enabling and disabling the hibernation.
Power Options in the. Control Panel. If hibernation is not used, it is safe to disable it (if not done. The file size of HIBERFIL.
SYS equals the total of RAM memory, so. The command POWERCFG. ON. in the Command Prompt (start menu. Accessories) will bring back the hibernation file. Start the. Command Prompt with additional administrator rights by right clicking it and to. C: \System Volume Information (hidden)This folder is necessary for the Windows Vista System Restore (and the.
By default, the system recovery is only applied. Windows partition (in most cases C: ), but it is also possible to enable. System in the Control Panel. Advanced system settings in the task pane. System Protection).
By. disabling System Restore for. System Volume Information.
After disabling System Restore and. If System Restore has been turned on. Create. C: \PAGEFILE. SYS (virtual memory)The paging file (the 'virtual memory') is stored on the hard disk and is. RAM memory. The paging file is only used in addition. RAM memory in case there is not enough RAM memory to run the.
The paging file PAGEFILE. SYS is stored on the root. Windows partition by default.
If there is a lot of RAM memory available (2 Gb or more). It is also wise to move the paging file to a (faster) partition. In time this. folder will become larger and larger as a result of many updates.
Although this. information is not that important, it is not that easy to empty this folder. After the service is active again, this folder is recreated.
To upgrade Windows update to. Microsoft Update, to receive updates of more Microsoft products, click the. Get updates for more products and accept the terms of use. Deleting these files is done with the command COMPCLN (enter this command in the area Start Search of the Start. Menu) followed by the Y- key to confirm the definitive deletion of the. Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2. Attention: COMPCLN is.
Service Pack 2 replacing the cleanup tool VSP1. CLN. from Service Pack 1. Windows Media Center media samples. The folder C: \Users\Public\Recorded TV\Sample Media contains some default. Recycle Bin. Probably not necessary to tell. Recycle Bin is empty. This is done by right clicking the.
Recycle Bin on the desktop, option. Empty Recycle Bin. To find out which process is. Process Explorer (download: www. Processes. And. Threads/Process.
Explorer. mspx). With the tool Unlocker (download. Unlocker/3. 00. 0- 2. If it isn't possible to stop the locking process, then the.
Move. On. Boot utility can be handy (download: www. File. Utililties, old version is freeware). This utility makes it possible to. SEARCHING FOR POTENTIAL HARD DISK SPACE.. At this page many unnecessary folders/files are mentioned, which is a good. If this still doesn't give you enough free space for you, it's time to do.
The utility Disktective (download: www. Disktective shows by means of pie pieces the use of. Another interesting utility is Space. Sniffer (download.
A partition which. This happens. when the first available free area to store a file is not large enough to store.
The remaining part is saved on the next available free area. Because. larger files take more space to save, they probably will be more fragmented. If. the fragmented files are used frequently by the system, it will take relatively. Defragmenting the. By default, defragmenting takes place daily as a background task.
Because. defragmenting has a low priority, it is normally not noticed by the user. When the automatic defragmentation. All Programs, Accessories. Disk Defragmenter. Click the button Defragment now in the. Disk defragmenter window.
The button. Select volumes is used for selecting/deselecting partitions to defrag. DEFRAGMENTING THE WINDOWS REGISTERDefragmenting the Windows register will save system resources. On a newly. installed Windows Vista, it is common to be able to compress the register by 1. Reg. Defrag (download.
Visit the page about editing and.
Windows. Dev. Center. William Stanek. Over time, the many types of temporary files created when you browse the Internet, install programs, or update your computer can eat up the free space on your computer's disks. As your computer's primary disk fills to 8. Your computer may slow down as its primary disk fills to capacity because your computer depends on this free space to write the page file and other temporary files it needs to use. To help prevent performance problems due to your primary disk being too full, you should periodically clean up your computer's disks using Disk Cleanup. Table 1 provides a summary of the types of temporary files Disk Cleanup can help you track down and remove. Table 1. Temporary files that you can clean up Type of temporary file Description Downloaded program files Contain programs downloaded for use by your browser, such as Active.
X controls and Java applets. These files are temporary and can be deleted. This file can be deleted, but it will be recreated the next time your computer enters sleep mode. These files are temporary and can be deleted. These files are stored to enable offline access and can be deleted. Emptying the Recycle Bin permanently removes the files. If your computer is fully installed and you have no problems with the installation, you can delete the setup log files.
System error memory dump files Contain dump files created by Windows because of a Stop error. If you've resolved the problem that caused the Stop error or do not plan to send the dump file to Microsoft or another support technician, you can delete the dump files. Temporary files Contain information stored in the Temp folder.
These files are primarily temporary data or work files for applications. Temporary Internet files Contain web pages stored to support browser caching of pages. These files are temporary and can be deleted. Temporary offline files Contain temporary data and work files for recently used network files. These files are stored to enable working and can be deleted.
Thumbnails Contain thumbnails of pictures, videos, and documents created by Windows Vista. When you access a folder the first time, Widows Vista creates thumbnails of pictures, videos, and documents.
These thumbnails are saved so they can be quickly displayed the next time you access a folder. If you delete thumbnails, they are recreated the next time you access a folder. Windows Error Reporting Creates several types of temporary files that are used for error reporting and solution checking.
Once you've resolved any problems (or if there are no current problems), you can delete these temporary files. Windows Error Reporting creates several types of temporary files that are used for error reporting and solution checking.
Once you've resolved any problems, or if there are no current problems, you can delete these temporary files. You can clean up temporary files by completing the following steps: Click Start. Then select Disk Cleanup. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, shown in Figure 1, you can choose to clean up only your files or files from all users on your computer.
Most of the time, you'll want to clean up files from all users to ensure you free up all the space that's being wasted. Figure 1. Choose the files to clean up. In the Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection dialog box, shown in Figure 2, select the primary system disk as the drive you want to clean up and then click OK. The primary system disk is the disk with the Windows logo. Disk Cleanup then examines the selected drive, looking for temporary files that can be deleted and files that are candidates for compression.
The more files on the drive, the longer the search process takes. Figure 2. Select the drive to clean up. When Disk Cleanup finishes, you'll see a list of files that can be deleted similar to the one shown in Figure 3.
Only a few types of temporary files are selected by default. Because of this, you'll want to review carefully the other types of temporary files that you can delete. As shown in the example, only 6. MB of data was selected for deletion by default, but I was able to increase this to 3. GB by selecting other types of unnecessary files.
After you select additional checkboxes as necessary, click OK. When prompted to confirm the action, click Yes. Figure 3. Select the cleanup options. When Disk Cleanup finishes, I recommend that you restart your computer and consider the two additional options it provides: Program Clean Up helps you free up space by removing programs that you do not use.
System Restore and Shadow Copy Clean up helps you free up space by removing all but the most recent restore point and shadow copy. I recommend backing up and restarting your computer before using these cleanup options to ensure your computer is in a bootable state, that there are no updates that need to be applied, and that there are no current errors that need to be resolved. You can use Disk Cleanup to help you clean up programs, as well as system restore and shadow copies, by completing these steps: Click Start, type . When prompted to confirm that you want to delete this data, click Delete. To find programs to clean up, click Clean Up under Programs And Features. On the Programs And Features page in Control Panel, select a program that you want to remove and then click Uninstall.
Figure 4. Clean up programs and other files as necessary. William Stanek has over 2.
He has written nearly 1. Paul Marquardt currently works as a network operating systems analyst for Dell. He specializes in highly available solutions, server/desktop deployment, and core Windows components. Return to the Windows Dev. Center. Comments on this article. Additional clean up steps.