When Less Is More
March 15th, 2010 | by admin |Clean Your Disk Drive of Unnecessary Files and Your Computer’s Performance Will Improve
When it comes to maintaining your computer, you’ve probably heard it all before. Two of the more popular ones are “Run Defrag!” and “Scan Your Disk for Errors!” Although these two activities are important, there’s more you can do to extend the life of your computer beyond today’s predicted two year span. By following the simple advice below, you can enjoy the use of your computer up to five years or more reserving expenses to simple software upgrades instead of costly hardware upgrades.
One of the easiest and least expensive things you can do to extend the life of your computer is to get rid of unnecessary programs, folders, and files. A disk drive clogged with unnecessary and unused files is a disk drive that works harder than necessary. Although Windows’ defragmentation system can ease some of the stress these files put on the drive, it doesn’t do much to get rid of the root of the problem. This is because the defrag program simply organizes the files in a system that makes it easier for the computer to access, thus cutting down on the work required to find and load them. But this method merely “relieves” the symptoms that these files induce; it doesn’t alleviate the cause at all. You need to delete these files, not “organize” them!
Deleting files is a scary adventure to most new computer users, and it even scares veteran computer users. Most computer users don’t know which files are safe to delete and which aren’t.
The worst thing anyone could do is snoop around crucial Window directories and haphazardly delete files that don’t look familiar. Doing so could render important programs inoperable, corrupt the Windows operating system, and possibly prevent the computer from even starting. That’s why using special deletion software is so important. Deletion programs will analyze a computer’s operating system and installed programs, to determine which files are crucial to computer function versus which files are safe to delete.
You already have such a program on your computer and it’s Windows’ Add/Remove Programs, which is available from the computer’s Control Panel. This software will assist you with deleting programs that you not only no longer want, but also additional files that these program use as well (dynamic link libraries, database files, registry references, shortcut icons, etc.).
But sometimes Windows’ Add/Remove Programs isn’t enough. Although this software does a pretty good job of removing unwanted programs, it can leave some files behind even after a complete uninstall. These files become what are known as orphan files. It’s these orphan files that can really clutter up a hard drive, and shorten the life of an otherwise young and robust PC.
Orphans are usually files that contain temporary data created by a program, files created by the user, partial files left over from a computer crash, or any other kind of miscellaneous files created for that specific program. The problem is that an uninstall program doesn’t delete the orphan files it leaves behind, because they were not part of the program at installation. An uninstall program can remove only the files it placed on the hard drive during its install process.
So while Windows’ Add/Remove Programs can remove an entire program, you’ll need to get rid of those pesky orphan files with a more advanced file cleaner, such as CleanSweep for example. CleanSweep is a unique program that will specifically seek out files no longer associated with a program, and then ask if you want to delete them.
The only time you wouldn’t want to delete an orphan file is if the file were an actual document you created before deleting a program. For instance, if you were going to uninstall Microsoft Word, all the documents you created with Word would then turn into orphan files. Or, if you were to uninstall a graphics editing program, all the pictures you made with the program become orphan files.
The smart thing to do when you don’t want to lose the data you created with an unwanted program is to:
1. Save or convert your documents to a format that will work with a different program first. Make sure to convert them to a format that works with a program that you intend to keep.
2. Archive them onto a floppy disk, flash drive, or CD or DVD-ROM.
3. Proceed with a program like CleanSweep.
Using CleanSweep or any other similar type of utility will delete a varying amount. Anywhere from less than a megabyte of hard drive space, to over hundreds of megabytes or more. On the lower end, that may seem like a small amount of “clog material” to you. But to your computer, it’s a lot less to process!
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