| |
|
Deleting Unnecessary Files
- March 2009:
Often
programs make changes to your AUTOEXEC or CONFIG files, and save
the older version under filenames such as AUTOEXEC.OLD or
CONFIG.BAK.
If you
know you don't need these older files, consider deleting them.
Don't delete AUTOEXEC.DOS or a CONFIG file ending in .DOS, .COM,
or .EXE. If you have a plethora of AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files on
your system, find out which one is the newest and move the
others into a temporary folder you create just for this purpose.
Leave them for a few weeks to see if your computer functions
properly without them. If it does, delete 'em.
Other
files ending in .BAK, .TMP, .~MP, .PRV, .---, .001, .002 (etc),
.LOG, .OLD, .*$, .$$$, .??, .??~, .^*, .SYD, .MP, etc. are often
unneeded duplicates of other files (be particularly careful with
the .PRV, .BAK, and .OLD files). Verify that they are unneeded
(if they're over a month old, you most likely don't need them)
and delete them. Use the Find Files function to locate these
files: enter something like *.BAK to search these files out. You
can always delete files ending with .GID or .FTS as these files
are created every time you use Help and the Help Search function
(.GID files are always hidden; you'll need to activate the "Show
all files" option in Explorer to find these babies). .CNT are
related files that provide you with tables of contents for
certain Help files. If you don't want them, get rid of the .CNT
files on your machine. If you find the file WIN32S in
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM, it's a leftover from when you upgraded from Win
3.x; you can safely delete it, just make sure you edit your
SYSTEM.INI file to remove any references to it. Two other
folders that can safely be deleted are MSCREATE.DIR and ~MSSETUP.T.
If you back up the Registry a lot, you can safely lose the
SYSTEM.1ST file. (When in doubt, leave the file alone.) And
check to see if you have a folder in Program Files called Online
Services. If you do, delete it. It's filled with old versions of
AOL, CompuServe, and possibly Prodigy and MSN. Should you wish
to sign up with any of these ISPs, contact them for current
software, don't waste your time with what's in that folder.
Check out your .TXT files; Windows tends to accumulate lots of
garbage under that name, so if it isn't one of your documents,
consider losing it. If you use MSWord, look for .WBK files;
these are backups for Word documents that you may not need. Word
also creates ~$*.DOC files when a document isn't saved properly;
if all your documents are OK, lose these files. To be on the
safe side with any deletion, create a special folder and move
all potential deletes into that folder. Keep them there for a
week or a month while you work with your PC. If you can start
and restart your machine OK, and all your apps function
properly, lose those files. Another kind of file that can
usually be trashed are the .DIZ files, usually named FILE_ID.DIZ.
This is a Description in Zip file, which just list the files in
their particular ZIP archive. Once you unzip an archive, the
accompanying DIZ files can be trashed. .GRP files are Program
Manager Groups that, if no longer used, can be trashed. And
don't keep unwatched .AVI or .WMV movie files around -- they
suck up a tremendous amount of space.
What
exactly are some of these files? .TMP and. ~MP files are
obviously temporary in nature, while .BAK files are backups for
particular files (not entire disks). .GID files are Generated
Index files created by Win Help, and .SYD files are backup files
created by SYSEDIT.EXE (and can be safely deleted if
you're sure you don't need them). Go to EXT Search at
kresch.com/exts/ext.htm to find out what any file extension
means (Win ME users, the System Editor, or SYSEDIT, has been
replaced by the System Configuration Utility, launched with the
MSCONFIG command).
Other
Maintenance Categories:
|
|
