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| Maximize PC Performance | |
| July 2001• Vol.9 Issue 7 Page(s) 82-84 in print issue | |
Save Space On Your Computer Clear The Clutter From Your Browser, E-mail & Hard Drive |
Jump to first occurrence of:
[SAVE]
[SPACE]
[COMPUTER]
 The spacious expanse of hard
drive that came with your computer is
starting to feel cramped with scattered files, programs, and a wealth of
computerized debris just begging to be dragged to the recycle bin. If
you’re like most computer users, you have your share of little-used data
littering your hard drive. This not only makes organization difficult, it
also slows down your system. Before you cave in and buy a larger drive,
though, try some of these tips for clearing some space on the one you
have. Clear The Browser
Cache. A browser cache is a folder that stores Web pages you
have recently viewed. The cache is a useful tool because it offers quicker
access to pages you view frequently. But, depending on the size at which
you set the cache, it can quickly bloat and take over a significant chunk
of your drive, slowing your browser’s performance. The other possible
problem with the browser cache is that if you don’t keep the files there
up to date, you will be referencing old material instead of accessing new
material from the Web.To avoid these problems, it’s a good idea to periodically delete your browser’s cache. The following steps will show you how to do this in several versions of the Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. All browsers use some form of caching system, so if you use a different browser to surf the Web, check the browser documentation for instructions on how to flush its cache. In most cases, controls for setting the size of the cache will be located in the same area as those for clearing it.
Netscape 4.x & 6. Choose Preferences from the Edit menu and select the Advanced option, followed by Cache. As in earlier versions of Netscape, click both of the Clear Cache buttons. IE 3.x. Open the View menu; select Options, Advanced; and click Settings in the Temporary Internet Files section. Click Empty Folder. IE 4.x. Select Internet Options from the View menu. On the General tab, click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section. IE 5.x. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu. Choose the General tab and click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section. Clean The Browser
History. Clearing a browser’s history (a log of sites you have
visited over a certain length of time) can not only free up space on your
hard drive, but it can also work as a security measure to erase the
footprints indicating where you’ve been online. Like the cache, you can
also use controls near where you clear the history to limit the size and
scope of this feature.Netscape 3.x. Open the Windows menu and select History, Expire Now. Netscape 4.x. Select Preferences from the Edit menu. Choose the Navigator category and click Clear History. Netscape 6. Select Tools from the Tasks menu and click History. IE 3.x. Open the View menu and select Options, followed by the Navigation tab. In the History area, click Clear History. IE 4.x & 5.x. Open the View or Tools menu and select Internet Options. On the General tab, click Clear History. Delete Cookies.
Remember when the word “cookies” conjured up images of Keebler
Elves and glasses of milk instead of malicious hackers and the eerie
feeling of someone peering over your shoulder as you surf the Internet?
Cookies (files that Web sites place on users’ hard
drives) have been on the scene since the third version of both Netscape
and IE. Cookies allow Web sites to personalize their content and remember
your username and password, among other things. The downside of cookies is that they give away more information about you than you may be comfortable with. In addition, they can pile up quickly and consume a lot of space on your hard drive. Deleting them will clear up some space, but you will lose your site preferences and have to register with a site every time you visit it. If you still want to proceed, follow these steps: Netscape (prior to version 6). The easiest way to delete cookies in earlier versions of Netscape is to delete the Cookies.txt file. To find it, click Start, Find and choose Files Or Folders.
IE (all versions). IE stores all its cookies as individual text files in one location: C:\WINDOWS \COOKIES. Browse to this folder and then se lect which ones (or all) to delete. IE 6. Microsoft is adding a Delete Cookies button to IE 6 (the next version of the browser in the works) as part of the General tab in the Internet Options dialog box. Remove
Bookmarks/Favorites. Bookmarks (Netscape) or Favorites (IE) are
a good way to quickly access your favorite sites, but they can build up
fast. Occasionally weeding them out is a good way to both regain space and
improve your browser’s performance. To manage Bookmarks in Netscape, either access the Bookmarks menu or choose Bookmarks from the Windows menu. Depending on your version, you’ll see such options as Go To Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks, and Edit Bookmarks, which will lead you to a section where you can delete specific Bookmarks you no longer need. In IE, Bookmarks are called Favorites. To delete Favorites you no longer use, access the Favorites menu and, as in Netscape, select the ap propriate area (such as Organize Favorites) for your browser version. Clear & Archive
E-mail. E-mail is probably one area that you don’t think about
when it comes to saving space on your PC, but e-mail can quickly take up a
lot of room on a hard drive. It’s a good idea to minimize your e-mail
collection to free up space.
Check your e-mail program documentation to see if the application has an archiving feature built into it. For example, in Microsoft Outlook, you can access this feature by choosing Archive from the File menu. Archiving mail lets you compress messages you don’t have a pressing need for. In this way you can hold onto messages while still conserving space. Disk Cleanup.
If you’d rather minimize the amount of time you spend scouring
your hard drive for files to delete, Disk Cleanup is the application for
you. This program ships with Windows and can help to keep both
Internet-specific and other files at a manageable level. You can also use
it as an easy way to access other tools that can help trim up your hard
drive, such as the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box, which we’ll
talk about in a moment.1.Access Disk Cleanup by clicking Start and selecting Programs, Accessories, System Tool, Disk Cleanup. In the Select Drive dialog box, choose the drive you want to clean. The application will now calculate how much space it can save before opening the Disk Cleanup dialog box. The actual setup and number of options available to you will depend on your system. 2. In the Disk Cleanup tab, you will see a number of different file types you can clean up, including Temporary Internet Files (another way to access and clean your browser cache), Downloaded Program Files (ActiveX controls and Java applets that are downloaded as part of Web pages), the Recycle Bin, and a Temporary Files folder option, where some programs store temporary information. Depending on your system, other options may be available, such as the ability to delete offline Web pages and debugging information. 3. To get a description of an option, highlight it and the description will appear, cleverly enough, in the description window. When you click a box to select it for deletion, the total amount of disk space you will save by cleaning out those files displays as a running tally below the Files To Delete window. Some options, such as Temporary Internet Files, feature a View Files button that lets you actually crawl into a folder and see what you will be deleting before you do it.
Another tab common to most Windows systems with Disk Cleanup is the More Options tab. Select this for one-click access to various sections of the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box (see next section), where you can add or remove Windows components, regular installed programs, and more. Again, various systems, such as Windows Me, offer additional options here, such as access to the System Restore application. Remove Programs.
In addition to accessing the Add/Remove Programs Properties
dialog box from the Disk Cleanup program, you can launch it by clicking
Start and selecting Settings, followed by the Control Panel. From the
Control Panel, double-click the Add /Remove Programs icon to open the Add
/Remove Programs Properties dialog box. Here you will see a couple of
different ways to regain some significant space on your hard
drive:Install/Uninstall tab. From the Install /Uninstall tab, you can completely remove software on your system. Simply click a program from the list to select it and then click the Add/Remove button. The program does a pretty good job of removing most aspects of an application, although you may have a little cleanup to do afterward. Be careful in deleting any DLL (dynamic-link library) files, as more than one program on your system may be using these and tossing them could force you to reinstall other programs that share the DLL. Windows Setup tab. The Windows Setup tab can also help you free up hard drive real estate. The Components window holds all the parts of Windows on your computer. These parts are organized into such sections as Accessories, Communications, and Multimedia. Each section can hold several different components, and you can see a list of components by highlighting a section and clicking the Details button. Sections that are shaded only have select components installed. This is noted in the description box, where you can also get details on the section itself. The area between the Components and Description windows keeps track of how much space components take up, how much will be added or removed if you follow through with the installation or removal options, and more. You can uninstall certain components by highlighting a section and clicking the Details button. Then in the window that pops up, remove the check mark from the checkbox in front of the component you want to remove. If there is no check mark, that component is not installed. Click OK when you’re done, then click OK again to exit out of the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box. Uninstall option. Another way you can remove programs is by clicking any uninstall option a program has. You can find this by browsing through the specific program folder or by clicking Start, selecting Programs, opening up the folder containing the specific program you want to remove, and seeing if an uninstall icon is part of the Start group. Delete Temporary
Files. Your computer uses the Temporary Files folder as a
temporary storage area when it installs applications. Many applications
will clear out their garbage at the end of the installation process, but
not all are so courteous. This folder can balloon out quickly with files
that have no purpose, and until you delete them by hand, they aren’t going
anywhere.
2. Sort the files by date and drag anything older than a week to the recycle bin. You can also check to see if you have a C:\TEMP folder and run it through the same process. Get Rid Of
Miscellaneous Files. In addition to all of the above, try the
following to free up disk space: Check to see if files you have unzipped
are still lurking around your hard drive in .ZIP format. Often when you
decompress a file, your computer will not delete the original compressed
version; you’ll have to do that yourself manually. Start by searching for multimedia files. Formats such as .AVI, .MOV, or .WAV represent movie and sound files that can take up a lot of space. You can search for these files by clicking Start, selecting Find, and choosing Files Or Folders. In the Find: All Files dialog box, click the Advanced tab and choose the appropriate file type from the Of Type drop-down list. Cleanup Software.
Of course, if you’d like to save yourself some of the hassle of
searching all of these disposables out yourself, you can always have
third-party software do it for you. A number of specialized applications
do a great job of easing the task of hard drive cleaning, but two of the
best are Window Washer and Cleansweep.Window Washer. Webroot.com’s Window Washer (http://www.webroot.com/) not only cleans up Internet files such as browser caches, cookies, and drop-down address lists, but you can also use it to keep the Recycle Bin, Temporary File folders, and more in check. Special features of the program let you clean custom files that you specify and give you the ability to overwrite deleted files so file recovery utilities can’t be used to recover any information. CleanSweep. Think of Norton CleanSweep (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/qdeck/ncs) as an industrial-strength cleaning crew. In addition to Internet and run-of- the-mill drive files, CleanSweep can clean up the Registry. It can also remove programs and their associated files and find and delete redundant DLL files, duplicate files, and much more. One nice feature here is the ability to back up and restore anything you do, letting you repair any mistakes you stumble into with a simple click. Every Day Can Be
Cleaning Day. Performed frequently, these simple disk-cleaning
techniques will help keep your hard drive clean and lean and make your
system and applications run better and faster. Who could ask for more?
 by Rich Gray
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