======================================== Lesson 5 - Getting rid of even more temp files For Windows (95, 98, 2000, XP) systems. ======================================== In Lessons 1 and 2 we reduced the space on your computer's hard drive taken up by default settings of the Recycle Bin and Internet browser. Most folks have heard of or know about files called temporary files. For those who haven't a very short explanation of them. Temporary files are created on your computer when you do certain things. They are created in a variety of ways among which are: installing programs, visiting web sites, using help programs. Each of these actions create temporary files on your computer. As each generation has tried to teach succeeding generations - clean up after yourself, so too, programmers have been taught to do the same. Unfortunately in this hurry up world a good number do not. For instance, if you run the 'help' portion of a program, to get assistance to run some feature of the program, and never use 'help' again, a temporary file is created on your hard drive that never goes away unless you delete it. It can be safely deleted, for if you run help again, the file is re-created. The result is that long after you've installed a program, visited a web site or run the help function of a program, these files are left behind littering up your hard drive. Now most folks think, well if I empty the temporary files under my Internet browser or a folder called 'Temp' under my C: drive I'll get rid of these files. While that may be true for a good number of files, it won't get them all, for there are many types of temporary files, that you may not be aware of that would be missed doing it manually. That said, I came across a neat, free program a few years ago that very nicely looks through your hard drive, identifies these files and deletes them for you. Even better, it also has a 'test mode', which allows the program first to analyze the hard drive and report to you just what files it would be getting rid of - and how much space you would save. The least I've seen it report was less than a megabyte of space to over a gigabyte of space. Typical savings of space usually free up several megabytes of space, which on hard drives where free space is a premium, it's like finding gold, a nice experience. The free program is called HDValet - hard drive valet. It is less than 1 megabyte in size. It can be found at: http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/Multi-Platform/105/35.html Just look for the file hdvalet.zip in the listing on that page, click on it, you'll get a box asking you to open, save, cancel, more info buttons. - Select save, to save it to your hard drive and/or open to have it copy to a temp folder on your computer. ======================= IF this seems to be difficult for you to download and open, I will send the extracted files to you, if you ask. There are 8 files for a total of about 950K. I know this program works with Windows95, Windows98, Windows98 Second Edition and Windows XP. I believe it will also work with Windows 2000, Millenium and NT - but since I've no direct experience using it with the latter 3, I can't say for sure that it will. ======================= When one runs the program the first time - by clicking on the icon that looks like a man's tuxedo, the default is 'test mode'. Running it in 'test mode' does not free up space on your hard drive. It only allows you to see how much space would be freed up by the program were you to run it in 'real mode' or with the 'test mode' unchecked. I encourage you to run it first in 'test mode' so you can see for yourself just how much wasted space can be freed up on your computer. To run the program so it frees up space, uncheck the 'test mode' box when the program starts. For most hard drives it doesn't take too long of a time to run this - but depending on how much it finds, it could take a good little while the first time you run it. Running it after the first cleansing, should allow it to run faster as there should be less for the program to find. Having used this program for over 3 years, I have found this to be one of the easiest programs to rid hard drives of excess, unneeded files and so it is one of the programs I use every time I work on someone's machine to improve the performance of the machine. ======================================== For Advanced Users - as new types of temporary files come down the line or if there are certain types of files that you'd like to discard, the program allows itself to be tweaked by adding new file types to it. As long as you do not create files, that fall within the program's normal file types it seeks to get rid of, running this program should cause no ill effects. If you do, the program also allows you to not delete certain file types, which I find very versatile for such a simple but powerful program. ======================================== End of Lesson 5 ======================================== To see former Lessons - http://www.rootsweb.com/~nmahgp/pctips.htm Lesson 6 - Disk Health Tim