Disk Cleanup Utility
To keep a PC
running smoothly, regular maintenance is critical. Many users shy
away from maintenance tasks, thinking it is a long, drawn out manual
affair, but the Disk Cleanup Utility can easily determine which
files on a hard drive may no longer be needed and delete those
files. In addition to freeing up potentially significant amounts of
hard drive space, using Disk Cleanup on a regular basis can
significantly improve system performance.
Starting Disk Cleanup
Disk Cleanup is
available on both Home and Professional versions of XP. The utility
can be accessed in any of the methods listed below.
- Click
Start
| Programs | Accessories | System Tools
| Disk Cleanup
- Click Start | Run
and in the Open box type cleanmgr and click OK
- In Windows Explorer or My
Computer, right-click the disk in which you want to free up
space, click
Properties, click the General
tab, and then click Disk Cleanup.
Use the drop
down menu arrow to select the drive you want to clean.
Click [OK] and Disk Cleanup will analyze the selected drive
to determine the amount of space that can be freed.
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Note: Be patient. Analyzing the drive can be a lengthy
process depending on drive size and contents. |
Once the drive
analysis is complete a list of file categories will be presented for
your selection.
Instead of
automatically proceeding with cleanup once the drive analysis is
complete, Disk Cleanup allows you to review the categories of files
that can be deleted. Click on any of the categories to display more
information relative to that category in the Description section of
the window.
If you're unsure if you want to delete the files in a category
from the description, use the [View Files] button. A complete
list of files scheduled for deletion will be displayed in Windows
Explorer. Use drag and drop to move any files you want to save to a
safe location and leave the category selected. If all the files are
to be saved, close the window and then remove the checkmark from the
file category so it will not be included in the disk cleanup. After
all the categories have been reviewed, click [OK] to begin
the disk cleanup process.
File Categories in
Disk Cleanup Utility
There are a number of
different types of file categories that Disk Cleanup targets when it
performs the initial disk analysis. Depending on the individual
system, you may or may not have all the categories listed below. An
excellent example of this would be Backup Files from a Previous
Operating System. If a clean install of XP was performed then this
category will not exist. It pays to click
on each of the categories and note that the [View Files] button can
change depending on the category selected.
These are
ActiveX controls and Java applets downloaded from Web sites that are
temporarily stored in the Downloaded Program Files folder. It's not
program files or zip files that you have downloaded from other
locations.
This refers to Internet Explorer's cache of Web pages that are
stored on the hard drive for quicker viewing. None of your personal
web settings are affected by selecting this category, nor does it
delete any cookie files.
The main thing to be aware of in this category is that it only
refers to the Recycle Bin for the selected hard drive or partition.
This is important since XP uses an individual Recycle Bin for each
drive and partition, not just one as is the case in some Windows
versions.
These files are the result of using the Remote Desktop utility. If
you repeatedly use Remote Desktop with the same computer or group of
computers, leaving these files intact will maintain the speed of
future connections. Deleting them will necessitate downloading the
remote systems icons and wallpaper the next time a connection is
established.
These are really pretty useless unless you have a specific reason to
go back and see what occurred during XP setup.
I mentioned this
category earlier as one you may not have, but if you did upgrade
from a previous Windows version and selected the option to be able
to uninstall XP, it may well exist. It takes some major hard drive
space to copy all the files necessary to back up a previous system's
core files, drivers, etc. This entry can range anywhere from a few
hundred megabytes up to a gigabyte, so unless you are still
considering dumping XP this is a good category to select.
Users with slower
dialup connections and those using laptops frequently make websites
they use often available offline. Depending on how many levels deep
you save the sites, they can eat up gigabytes of hard drive space
very quickly. Worse than taking up space, the sites often contain
outdated information. A good candidate for deletion.
Unlike the other
categories, Compress Old Files doesn't delete any files from the
drive. It compresses files that Windows hasn't accessed for a
specified period of time. The files are still available, but there
will be a slight increase in access times because the files will be
decompressed the next time they are accessed. Note that when
Compress Old Files is highlighted an Options button appears.
Clicking it will allow you to set the number of days to wait before
an unaccessed file is compressed.
There may be other
categories that appear in your Disk Cleanup window, but in all
cases, highlighting the item will display an explanation of the
category in the Description area.
More Options Tab
In addition to the
categories that appear on the Disk Cleanup tab, the More Options tab
offers additional opportunities for freeing up hard drive real
estate. There is nothing on this tab that isn't available elsewhere
within XP in stand alone fashion, but having them grouped here does
serve as a convenient reminder.
In
Windows XP there are three choices available on the More Options
tab: Windows Components, Installed Programs, and System Restore.
The
Cleanup button in the Windows Components section launches the
Windows Components Wizard. Select a general category of components
and drill down using the Details button to locate the desired
Windows component.
The Cleanup button in the Installed
Programs section opens the Add/Remove Programs dialog box. Any
installed program can be removed by selecting the individual program
and clicking the Change/Remove button. You cannot batch programs
together to be removed. Each removal operation must be treated as a
separate entity.
Clicking the Cleanup button in the
System Restore section opens a dialog box where it asks if you are
sure you want to delete all but the most recent restore point. The
difference between using this option and going directly to System
Restore is that you have no option to selectively delete restore
points with this method. It's "all but most recent" or nothing when
accessed via Disk Cleanup. Click Yes or No depending on your choice.
Post Disk Cleanup Procedures
Using Disk Cleanup will almost
certainly rid your system of a substantial amount of unneeded files.
You could stop here and not suffer any ill consequences, but there
are a lot of gaps and empty spaces on the hard drive where the files
were removed. This would be an excellent time to run Disk
Defragmenter to organize the hard drive into contiguous sections.
The hard drive heads will spend less time seeking all the pieces of
a file and you'll see another performance boost.
Additional Disk Cleanup links
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