April 4, 2004

I have many customers who are always worried about cluttering up their hard drive with unnecessary files. Some people tend to get paranoid about cleaning up these files, so, in this discussion, I'm going to attempt to explain how to best keep your hard drive cleaned up.

First of all, there are many settings which control temporary files, etc. First, let's look at the recycle bin. The recycle bin is a convenience you have in the event that you delete a file, and then later decide you need it back, you can go to the recycle bin and restore it. You can set the size of the recycle bin by right-clicking on the recycle bin, then left-click on Properties. I have several people who are constantly going to the recycle bin and manually deleting the files. Here's the way it works, if you have the recycle bin set to 10%, it will use 10% of the free space on the hard drive to store deleted files. It will store files until it reaches the limit. At that point, it will start deleting the oldest files to make room for more files. You can manually delete the files, but it will immediately start adding files, such as program temporary files, etc. If you don't want files to go to the recycle bin, you can turn it off, but then, you can't restore any deleted files. My advice, let it do it's thing and leave it alone and don't worry about it.

Temporary files are created by programs and Windows during normal operations. The programs are supposed to delete the temporary files when you shut them down, but they don't always clean up after themselves. In pre-XP computers, these files are in the C:\Windows\Temp folder, and in Windows XP computers, these files are in the C:\Documents and Settings\"Logon Name"\Local Settings\Temp folder. Temporary Internet files are located in the C:\Windows\Temporary Internet folder, in pre-XP computers and in the C:\Documents and Settings\"Logon Name"\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files folder. These files can be cleaned up through Internet Explorer by going to the Tools menu, Internet Options, then removing them on the General tab. You can also delete the Internet history here.

The easiest way to clean up unneeded files in Windows XP is to Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click on the Disk Cleanup Program. You can choose what you want to clean up.

In summary, I suggest that every 3 to 4 months, you go to Control Panel and remove any programs you don't use, run disk cleanup and remove unwanted items, then run the disk defragmenter (click here for more info). XP users NOTE: Windows no longer has Scandisk. Once every 6 months or so, I'd suggest you start Windows Explorer, right-click on the C drive, left click on Properties, then click on Error Checking on the Tools tab. Check both options. You will get a dialog box that the computer will have to run the tests when it restarts. This check could take an hour or two so do it when you aren't going to be using the computer for a while. Now restart the computer and it will come up with a blue screen with the progress of the checks. This is an important check to do so try to do it a couple of times a year.

One other place to free up disk space is in Outlook Express. AFTER YOU DO A BACKUP, start up Outlook Express, go to File, Folder, Compact All Folders. If you have deleted a bunch of old emails, the folders don't change size until you compact them.

If you have any questions or comments, click