Information Addicts

 
Image by Photo-Mojo

I was at a friends house at the weekend, and while I was there he asked me if I could take a look at his pc as it was running very slow, (that’s what happens when your friends and family know you are in IT).
The first thing I checked was his hard drive space which was quite low, so I new that the hard drive could do with a clean out, I will get back to that in a moment.
Next, I updated and ran his Antivirus and Spyware programs to check to see if there was any problems, and they both came up clean, which was good news.

I then decided to run the Windows XP Disk Cleanup tool, this is a basic tool but quite effective to start with.
The easiest way to run Disk Cleanup is to type cleanmgr /d c: /sageset:100 in the Run box, (to access the run box press and hold the Windows key and then the R key, or Start > Run).
Note: /d driveletter - This switch selects the drive (in this case the c: drive) that you want Disk Cleanup to clean.

The Disk Cleanup dialog box will appear. Check the items you want to clean every time you run this process, for example Setup log files, Recycle Bin, Temporary Internet Files, Old Chkdsk files, the only one I would miss out is the Office Setup Files box, as this could mean that you have to reinstall some files from the office CD.
It is also worth clicking on each file category to find out what these files are capable of doing, you will see the description at the bottom of the dialog box. 

Next Create a new shortcut in the c:\Windows folder by right clicking on a blank area in the folder and choosing New > Shortcut, in the ‘Type the location of the item’ field, type cleanmgr /sagerun:100.

Click Next and name it Diskcleanup, then click finish.
If you then locate the file in the windows folder and click on it, it will automatically run. This will delete all the files that you ticked earlier, and possibly give your pc a speed boost.
Next I added this file to the Task Scheduler so that it would run weekly without any user intervention, heres how to do it.

Click the Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools.
Double-click Add Scheduled Tasks
Choose Next
Click on Browse and locate the shortcut file that you just created, c: \windows\Diskcleanup
Choose Weeklyand give it a name (I named it Diskclean)
Click Next
Select the Time and day during which you want the CleanupTask to run. (make sure it is a time when your pc will be switched on).
Click Next
Type-in the Username and password. (By default, task scheduler won’t run with a blank password)
Choose Next, Finish.

Every week the Disk Cleanup tool will run automatically which will help to keep the hard drive clutter free.
As I wrote earlier Windows Disk Cleanup is a basic disk cleaner, and there is another free, but excellent program that I highly recommend and it does more than just “clean up” your computer.
This application is capable of managing which programs start up when you turn on your pc, it can back up your registry before it deletes any old or unused files, it digs deeper to delete other files that Windows Disk Cleanup misses, and it has an array of options that you can choose.

The program is called CCleaner and is a must have tool even if your pc is only a few months old, as it will still find files that are redundant and taking up hard drive space. CCleaner should also give your pc or Laptop a speed boost.

 

As you can see from the above picture, here are some of the files it will clean up:

Internet Explorer
Temporary files, URL history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
Firefox
Temporary files, URL history, cookies, download history.
Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, MS Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…

I downloaded the application, (click on this link to download, it is only 2.6MB in size).

Once downloaded, I installed and ran it, (to run CCleaner click on the desktop icon it creates and then click the Analyze button) using the programs default options, CCleaner picked up nearly 750MBs of temporary, unused and old files. I clicked on Run Cleaner and these files were instantly deleted. One thing you will notice is just how fast this program runs.

I then restarted the pc, it booted up and ran faster.

One more thing you could do, is add this application to the Task Scheduler, using the method above.

All the above only took about 30 minutes.

So how do you quickly and easily speed up your pc? clean up the hard drive.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 5:07 pm and is filed under PC Tips, PC Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.