How to Clean Up Files on Your Hard Drive

Is your computer running slowly? Are you running out of disk space? Before purchasing another hard drive or computer, try these tips to clean up the files and free up space on your computer. These tips might even help it run faster!!!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Your Computer
• Time

1. The easiest way to start is to run a Disk Clean on your computer. To run Disk Clean:
   
   Click on Start, Run, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.
2. A prompt will appear asking you what drive you want to clean, and just let it clean the C: drive first... Not everyone has more than a C: drive, but if you click on the down arrow, it will tell you what drives are available to clean. Then, Click on OK.
3. After the calculating of space and files is done, a box will appear with many options for you to check or uncheck. I usually check ALL of the boxes. These files are usually junk files, temporary files, etc., that do not hurt your computer if they are deleted. If you want to keep, for example, the Office setup files, just make sure it is unchecked.
4. After checking the boxes you want to clean, click on OK. The files will be removed.
   
   NOTE: If you want to run this on another drive, start this procedure over and select the next drive on the drop-down list.
5. The next thing you can do is to remove files from the C:\windows\temp directory (if you have one). So, in Windows Explorer, click on the Windows folder, and then look for the /temp folder. Click on the /temp folder, and see if there are any files in there. If so, you can delete them. If there are alot of files, left click once on the first file, then scroll to the bottom file, hold down the Shift key, and left click on the bottom file. That will highlight ALL of the files so you can delete them (instead of deleting each one separately). Once the files are highlighted, press the Delete key.
6. The next thing to try is to run Ad-Aware. Ad-Aware is a free program that will scan your computer for files that do not belong on your computer. I will attach the link to Ad-Aware below. Download Ad-Aware, run the program, and follow the screen. It is very easy to use, but if you have trouble, email me and I will set up another HOW on how to run it.
7. Another way to clean is to search for .tmp files. Click on Start, search, select All Files or Folders. In the "All or part of a file" box, type in this string of text: *.tmp and then click Search. Any files found can be deleted. (Remember, you can select all of the files by using the left click on top file, and Shift left click on the bottom file).
8. After this, a reboot would probably be a great idea. Then, on to the next step.....
9. Look at the bottom-right hand side of your screen. Are there 5 icons (pictures) there? Are there 25 icons there? The more icons that are shown the slower your computer will become. The icons are programs that are loaded when Windows starts up. They are probably not all required and can be removed to speed things up. To remove them, right click on each one and select "disable" or "Properties" and see if you can tell it to not start on Windows startup. Most programs let you select whether you want them to load or not. This will help with the speed. If you need more help, let me know.
10. The last thing I would try is a Defrag. This is where the computer moves files around on your computer so they can be accessed faster. To defrag, click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. To see if you need to defrag the hard drive, click on the Analyze button. This will tell you what you need to do. If you need to defrag, click on the Defragment button and wait. It will tell you when you are done, and then a reboot would be a good idea.
11. If these tips don't help with speed and hard drive space, then it might be time for a new computer or a tech to look at it. Good Luck!!

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure and back up files that you can't live without.
• Don't delete anything if you aren't comfortable doing so.
• If you delete files on your own, without using these processes, you risk the chance of really goofing up your computer. Follow the procedures first, ask a tech about deleting other things later.