Disk Cleanup Difficulty: Beginner Written by Matthew Elton How to run a disk cleanup: Windows 98, 2000, ME,

and XP come with a Disk Cleanup utility. To run a disk cleanup, go to "Start"then click "Programs" (or in Windows Xp, "All Programs") then click "Accessories" then click on "System Tools." Then click "Disk Cleanup." Another way to access disk cleanup is to go to My Computer, right click on the drive you want to cleanup (Disk cleanup is uaully done on a hard drive such as c:\) then click "Properties" and click on "Disk Cleanup" (note: in older versions of windows you might have to click on "Tools" after you click on "Properties" and then click "Disk Cleanup") What is Disk Cleanup and Why Should I Run it? Over time, unneccassary files accumulate on your hard-drive, taking up unneccassary space. The Disk Cleanup utility will find these files and delete them. This will free up space on your hard drive. You should run disk cleanup every so often, especially if your hard drive is low on free space. After running disk cleanup, the unneccassary files will be listed. These files will be catagorized in these groups: Temporary Internet Files, downloaded program files, offline webpages, files in the recycle bin, temporary files, and "compress old files." To the right of each catagory it will show how much disk space, in kilobytes (1,000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte). Temporary internet files are pictures, text, sound and music files, and even videos that are downloaded to your computer every time you access a webpage to make that page work properly. After a few weeks, these files are automatically deleted. However, it's not a bad idea to delete them ahead of time. Deleting them will free up space on your hard drive and if your computer ever needs them again it can simply download them again. Click the little box to the left of the words "Temporary Internet Files" to put a check in the box if there is not check in the box and to take the check out of the box if there is a check in the box. If the box is checked when you click "Okay" the files will be deleted. If the box is not checked when you click "Okay" the files will not be deleted. Downloaded program files are similar to Temporary Internet Files. They are active-x controls, java applets, and other computer code that is downloaded to your computer to make certain webpages work properly. Like Temporary Internet Files, they can be safely deleted to free up space on your hard drive. If your computer ever needs them again to access a webpage, it can just download them again. Click the little box to the left of the words "Downloaded Program Files" to put a check in the box if there is not check in the box and to take the check out of the box if there is a check in the box. If the box is checked when you click "Okay" the files will be deleted. If the box is not checked when you click "Okay" the files will not be deleted. Offline webpages are webpages you've saved to your computer, or "synchronized" so you;ll be able to view them when you're not connected to the internet. To save a webpage to your computer, just go to that page in Internet Explorer, click on "File" and click "Save As." If you have any offline webpages taking up space you should probably click right on "Offline Webpages" so it is highlited in blue, then click on "View Files." Take a look at the offline webpages and decide if you want to keep them or not. If you don't, make sure there is a check in the little box to the left of the words "Offline Webpages." If there is no check in the bix,

click on the box to put a check the box to the left of "Offline Webpages." If you do want to keep the Offline Webpages, make sure there is no check in the little box to the left of the words "Offline Webpages." If there is a check there, click on it to clear the box. Files in the Recycle Bin are files you've deleted. When you delete a file, it is not totally erased from your computer. It is just moved to the "Recycle Bin." The files stay in the Recycle Bin until you decide to permementally delete them. (If you decide you don't want to delete the files, and you want to move them out of the Recycle Bin, open up the Recycle Bin, it's usually on your desktop, then right click on the files you want to move out of the Recycle Bin and click "Restore" to move them back to where they were when you deleted them, or click "Cut" or "Move" to move them somewhere else. Go to where you want them in Windows Explorer and then go to "Edit" and click on "Paste.") Anyway, when deciding if you should delete the files in the Recycle Bin from the Disk Cleanup utility or not, click right on the words "Recycle Bin" so they are highlighted in blue. Then click "View Files." Take a look at the files and decide if you want to keep them or not. If you decide you don't really need them and you should delete them to free up space, make sure there's a checkmark in the little box to the left of the words "Recycle Bin" in theDisk Cleanup utility. If there's not, click on the box to put a checkmark there. If you decide you don't want to delete the files in the Recycle Bin, make sure there is no checkmark in the little box to the left of the words "Recycle Bin" in the Disk Cleanup utility. If there is a check in the box, click on it to clear the box. Temporary files are files generated by Windows applications to make the application run properly. Large ammounts of these files are generated when installing large programs. The installer will use these files once, and then leave them there, never to use them again. The files are usually deleted automatically after a couple weeks, however, during that time they can take up a lot of space. Deleting Temporary files will not harm your computer. If your computer ever needs the files again, it can generate them again. I would recommend deleting any temporary files taking up space on your hard drive, especially if they are taking up more than fifty megabytes (50,000 killobytes). Click the little box to the left of the words "Temporary Files" to put a check in the box if there is not check in the box and to take the check out of the box if there is a check in the box. If the box is checked when you click "Okay" the files will be deleted. If the box is not checked when you click "Okay" the files will not be deleted. "Compress Old Files" are files that you haven't used in the last fifty days. Since these files could be important, the Disk Cleanup utility will not delete them. Instead, it will compress them. Compressing them means it will "shrink" the files, so they won't take up much space. The contents of the files will not be changed at all. When the files are used again, they will be decompressed. This may make accessing the file a little slower then normal since the file must be decompressed before opening it. However, old files are ones you probably don't access that much anyway, so I would defenently recommend compresing any old files, especially if they take up more than fifty megabytres, (50,000 killobytes). Click the little box to the left of the words "Compress Old Files" to put a check in the box if there is not check in the box and to take the check out of the box if there is a check in the box. If the box is checked when you click "Okay" the old files will be compressed. If the box is not checked when you click "Okay" the old files will not be cimpressed. To the left of each catagory is a small box. If you click an empty box, a checkmark apepars in it. If you click on a box with a checkmark in it, it becomes an empty box. Make sure there are checkmarks in all the boxes next to the

catagories of files you want to delete/compress, and that the catagories of files you don't want to delete/compress have empty boxes next to them. Then click okay. The files for each catagory of unneccassary files that has a checked box next to it will be deleted, except for the compress old files catagory, if there is a check in the box for that catagory the files will be compressed, not deleted. The files in the catagories with empty boxes will be kept the same, they will not be deleted or compressed.