Clean
Your Disk Drive of Unnecessary Files and Your Computer’s Performance Will
Improve
When it comes to maintaining your computer, you’ve
probably heard it all before. “Run Defrag!” “Scan Your Disk for Errors!”
Although these two activities are important, there’s more you can do to extend
the life of your computer beyond today’s predicted two-year span. In fact, by
following the simple advice below, you can enjoy the use of your computer to up
to five years or more – reserving expenses to simple software upgrades rather
then complete and costly hardware upgrades.
One of the easiest and least expensive things you can do
to extend the life of your computer is to get rid of unnecessary programs,
folders, and files. A disk drive that’s clogged with unnecessary and unused
files is disk drive that works harder than it has to. Although Window’s defrag
system can ease some of the stress that these files place onto the drive, it
doesn’t do much to get rid of the problem in the first place. This is because
the defrag program simply organizes the files in a system that makes it easier
for the computer to access. (Thus cutting down on the work required to find and
load them). But this method merely “relieves” the symptoms that these files induce
– it doesn’t attack the cause. These files need to be deleted – not
“organized!”
Of
course, deleting files can be a scary adventure to most users. Most computer
users don’t know which files are safe to delete and which aren’t.
The
worst thing anyone could do is snoop around crucial Window directories and
haphazardly delete files that don’t look familiar. Doing so could render
important programs inoperable, corrupt the Windows operating system, and
possibly prevent the computer from even starting. That’s why using special
deletion software is so important. Deletion programs will analyze a computer’s
operating system and installed programs to determine which files are crucial to
computer function versus which files are safe to delete.
You
already have such a program on your computer and it’s Windows’ Add/Remove
Programs (available from the Control Panel). This software will assist you with
deleting programs that you not only no longer want, but additional files that
these program use as well (dynamic link libraries, database files, registry
references, shortcut icons, etc.).
But
sometimes Windows’ Add/Remove Programs isn’t enough. Although this software
does a pretty good job of removing unwanted programs, it can leave some files
behind even after a complete uninstall – files which become orphan files. And
it’s these orphan files that can really clutter up a hard drive and shorten the
life of an otherwise, young and robust PC.
Orphans
are usually files that contain temporary data created by a program, files
created by the user, partial files left over from a computer crash, or any
other kind of miscellaneous files created for almost any other reason. The
problem is that an uninstall program doesn’t delete the orphan files it leaves
behind because they were never part of the program when it was first installed.
An uninstall program can remove only the files it placed onto a hard drive
during its install routine.
So
while Windows’ Add/Remove Programs can remove an entire program, you’ll need to
get rid of those pesky little things with a more advance file cleaner like CCleaner
for example. CCleaner is a unique program that will specifically seek out files
that are no longer associated with a program, and then ask if you want to
delete them.
The
only time that you wouldn’t want to delete an orphan file is if the file were
an actual document that you created before deleting a program. If you were to
say, uninstall Microsoft Word, all the documents that you created with Word
would then turn into orphan files. Or if you were to uninstall a
graphics-editing program, all the pictures you made with the program would
become orphan files.
The
smart thing to do when you don’t want to lose the data that you created with an
unwanted program is to:
1.
Save
or convert your documents to a format that will work with different program
first (that is, a program that you intend to keep)
2.
Archive
them onto a floppy disk, flash drive, or CD-ROM
3.
Proceed
with a program like CCleaner. Get it here
Using CCleaner
or any other similar type of utility could delete anywhere from less than a
megabyte of hard drive space to over thirty megabytes and up. That may seem
like a small amount of “clog material” to you, but to your computer, it’s a lot
less to process!
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