Deleting files
Things you may want to know ...
This page is a collection of tips I've used to, more or less, safely
do a bit of cleaning up on my hard drive. If you don't know it,
the Windows and System folders are easily filled with leftover bits
from programs long ago deleted. A lot of people advice against digging
around in those folders, saying you may accidentally ruin your system.
This is, of course, true, but with a bit of caution you can get quite
a few megabytes of trash away without ruining anything at all.
If you have a useful tip you don't find here, or just comments, feel free to
mail it to me at
cfb97@hotmail.com.
IMPORTANT NOTE!!! I assume you know a bit about the registry and related topics. I have done these things myself, and my computer is still in one piece. Don't blame me if you happen to ruin yours following my tips ;-).
Another NOTE:
As I use the Swedish version of Windows, I may have translated things wrongly here.
I would appreciate your corrections if this is the case.
Right, on with the tips ...
- First, when deleting programs and games, always chek for an uninstaller program. If it's there, it will probably do a better job removing the program than you would.
- If there is no uninstaller, go ahead and delete by hand. Try deleting the folder of the program. If Windows pops up a box saying this may affect one or more registered programs, do a search in the registry and see if you can find out what the complaint is all about. If it doesn't seem important, delete the program and all the references in the registry.
- Right click on the files and check out their Properties, especially the Version tab. For the dll's filling up lots of space in the System folder, this tab will often tell you where they belong.
- Install Quickview, found on our Windows 95 CD, and use it on the files. Sometimes there are more clues to be found.
- Create a directory for the files you think it's okay to delete, move them there, and do at least one reboot before deleting them completely. Keep the files there for a while to see if some program misses them, if they do, it's much better to know before you can't get them back ...
- Files ending with .txt, .prv, .old, .chk or .tmp are safe to delete. .gid files are also safe to remove, but they are created when you open a help file, and will be back as soon as you open that help file again ... This goes for .fts files too, but these are created when you do a full text search in a help file. All files named mscreate.dir are also safe to remove. ErrorScan can help speeding up the finding and deleting of files with certain extensions. Thanks to Denis Boisclair for the tip.
- The file System.1st is a really big one found in your root folder. It contains your first registry, one that worked, and can be used should the registry become corrupted. Delete at own risk ...
- If you use Windows 98, there are some handy utilities to find right on the installation CD. Check out the Tools\Reskit directory. Running the Setup file found there will install the resource kit, which contains some nice stuff. Checklinks, for example, finds and removes dead shortcuts for you.
- Another Windows 98 related tip, check out the system tool Disc Cleaning (or whatever its English name is). It removes temporary files and stuff for you, and also shows how much space they take. I currently have 117 megabytes of temporary internet files ...
- Anything in any kind of temp-folder, like Windows/Temp and Windows/Temporary Internet Files should be safe to delete. I've never eperienced any problems when doing so, however I've read somewhere that you shouldn't delete temp-files created during this session.
Addtion on February 17, 2000.
More facts about Windows/Temporary Internet Files! Seems it works to delete anything that can be deleted in this folder. I did, and Windows promtly locked up, but everything works as usual after a reboot. There are lots of hidden subfolders in this folder, which I have to use Explorer to see, these can be deleted even though Windows complains that they are system folders. The only thing I couldn't get away was a really fat, 8,8 mb, file named index.dat, it could't be removed no matter what. More info on the subject would be appreciated. - The bmp-files located directly in the Windows folder are completely safe to remove, they're merely optional desktop wallpapers. If you happen to use one of them you may want to keep that one of course ...
- All files in the Plus!/Themes-folder are just for different desktop themes and may be removed at will. Note however that those themes included with Windows and Plus! can be removed through Add/Remove programs, so that may be a better idea.
This is a list I would have liked to have, so I would like to know what you think about it!
