Include Your PC in Spring Cleaning Chores

The Daily Telegraph of London has added a useful feature for the casual cyber-populace ...

It's a blog entitled Boot Camp 425 by Rick Maybury, the theme of which is to offer general advice and information to those for whom a computer is a normal tool for daily use, but who are not geeks. As an example of his fare, here's his entry promoting the obvious task of maintaining an orderly collection of data, which will result in a faster and more efficient computer:

It's time to tackle the nasty mess on your hard disc drive. Hard drives are a lot like office filing cabinets. They start off tidy and organised, with plenty of free space, but they fill up and quickly become cluttered with unused and dislocated files until eventually you can't find what you are looking for and the only solution is a thorough clear out.

If you don't look after your PC's filing system in just a few months it can become clogged with redundant files, disused downloads and bits of old programs, all of which are wasting space and slowing your PC down. However, it's the potential for these fragments to cause program conflicts and crashes become far more likely as time goes by.

Disc spring-cleaning is best tackled in stages and you should begin by taking an inventory of what's on your drive. Open Windows Explorer, right click on your C: drive icon, select Properties and this will display a pie chart showing how much free space remains. Make a note of it and later on we'll come back and see just how much rubbish you have managed to remove. While you are at it you could also jot down the time it takes for your PC to boot to a useable state; it will be interesting to compare it with a reboot when you have finished the cleanup.

The Properties pie chart only gives a relative indication of what's on your drive and you will get a much better idea of what you are dealing with by running a disk viewer application like SpaceMonger or Windirstat (both freeware), these will show up the programs and files that are taking up the most disk space.

Before you start removing files you should take a few precautions. Firstly make sure that all of your irreplaceable data is safely backed up and if you are using Windows ME or XP set a new System Restore Point by going to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools.

Once that's done begin with Windows own built-in cleaning utility, which will get rid of a lot of the detritus created by the operating system. You'll find Disk Cleanup in Programs > Accessories > System Tools. Start with a basic scan and this will find and remove old Temporary files (see also this week's Top Tip), web downloads and the contents of the Recycle Bin. It's perfectly safe and nothing it deletes is going to harm your PC so you can tick everything and click OK.

When it has finished go back to Disk Cleanup and select the More Options tab and there you will find buttons that take you to the Add/Remove Programs utility in Control Panel, for removing old programs that you no longer use, Windows components and old System Restore Points. I would leave the Windows section alone and only delete Restore Points (RPs) if your PC has been behaving normally for a while. The most recent RP will be retained so you can go ahead and click the OK button.

If you are planning to remove a lot of old programs then it is better to do so one at a time and reboot afterwards to make sure your PC is operating normally. Not all programs show up in Add/Remove Programs, some have their own uninstaller, which you should find in the program's folder. If you can't find one do not be tempted to delete the program folder, this could have serious repercussions as data files and Registry entries will not be removed.

Program uninstallers rarely do a complete job and the files they leave behind have a nasty habit of causing trouble, sometimes months or even years afterwards. This next step is optional because there is always a risk in tinkering with the Registry but if your backups are up to date and you set an RP all should be well. I suggest using a freeware utility called RegSeeker. It has its own backup facility so in the unlikely event of anything going wrong any changes can be undone. However, before you use it reboot the PC and set a new RP. Afterwards open Windows Explorer and check your hard disc Properties pie chart to see how much free space you have managed to reclaim.

If you are planning to remove a lot of old programs then it is better to do so one at a time and reboot afterwards to make sure your PC is operating normally. Not all programs show up in Add/Remove Programs, some have their own uninstaller, which you should find in the program's folder. If you can't find one do not be tempted to delete the program folder, this could have serious repercussions as data files and Registry entries will not be removed.

When you have finished your cleanup operations it is a good idea to let things be for a day or two, to make sure everything is okay. When you are sure that your PC is working normally carry out one more pass with Windows Disk Cleanup, reboot and run the Defrag utility (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools). Reboot again and with luck you should notice a small but worthwhile improvement in boot up time.