Free up megabytes of disk space by deleting files you don't need and those you may not even know you have. by Matt Lake July 16, 1999. 

I'll never forget my first very own hard drive. It was massive--twice the size of the creaky old thing I had at work. But that cavernous 40MB drive soon filled up. Now, more than a decade later, the same thing is happening again on drives that are even larger.

The fact is that clutter sticks to hard drives, filling each free sector it can find, no matter how many gigabytes the disk can hold. Whether it's a wicked MP3 habit, a predilection for downloading new software, or just picking the full installation option on a two-CD-ROM software title, your hard drive's a magnet for junk you rarely use, if ever. Even if you have gigabytes to spare, maxing free space is still important; the more weight your disk is carrying, the harder it has to work, and the more it has to thrash around to find the small bits of available free space. For this reason, freeing up space--at least 100MB, if you can manage it--will increase your hard drive's performance.

This article will guide you through ways to trim the odd megabytes off your hard drive. Think of it as the online equivalent of a Tae-Bo 
exercise video. As with any late-night infomercial, I have to stress that your results may vary. But the two hard drives I have enlisted as satisfied customers of this technique have reclaimed between 62MB and 210MB of wasted space--in less than 5 minutes. Your disk, too, can join the ranks of the fighting fit, and no special software is required. If you've got the time, you're ready to begin.

A Quick Spring Cleanup  If time is of the essence, and you don't feel like trudging through the deepest recesses of your hard drive, these speedy tips will help you get started on the road to digital leanness.

Bring in a Pro Cleaner Typical savings: Tens to hundreds of megs The quickest way to reclaim disk space under Windows 98 (but not Windows 95, alas) is to use its Disk Cleanup feature. At the click of a button, this tool empties the Recycle Bin and removes unneeded temporary Windows files, temporary Internet files (otherwise known as your Web browser's cache), and any downloaded program components such as ActiveX controls and Java applets. Navigate through Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and select Disk Cleanup. You can also use Windows Explorer or My Computer to locate the drive you want to clean up. Right-click its icon, select 
Properties, and click the Disk Cleanup button. Deselect any of the four options if you don't want to lose anything from a particular area, then click OK. Keep an eye on the Description area of this tool, which explains exactly what sorts of files you're deleting and what the consequences of your actions will be. And check out "Get Rid of Old Windows" later in this article for information on a fifth option that may appear here.
         Note: Windows 95 users can mimic this function with the Fast & Safe Cleanup function in Norton's CleanSweep products. Download the CleanSweep Deluxe trial from Fileworld.

Take Out the Recycling Typical savings: Tens of megabytes Remember that deleting files just sends them to the Recycle Bin; it doesn't clear your hard drive. To do that you'll need to empty the Recycle Bin. Right-click the Recycle Bin icon or the Recycled folder in Windows Explorer and select Empty Recycle Bin.

Let the Temps Go Typical savings: Tens of megabytes Windows and compatible applications tend to throw large volumes of files into temporary folders, and they leave them there. Leave Temp folders alone for long enough, and you'll have megabytes of dross. Check your hard drive for folders called Temp; there may be one in the root directory, and there's definitely one in the Windows folder. They need cleaning out. First, close all active programs so you won't be trying to clobber files that may actually be in use. Now, in Windows Explorer, navigate your way to a Temp folder and click the Modified column in the folder twice. This sorts the files into ascending date order. Hold down the Shift key, click the top file and scroll down until you find files stamped with today's date. Click the last file before today's date and press Delete.

Clear Your Registry Typical savings: 500KB, possibly more. It's not just your hard drive that gets filled with junk. Your Windows Registry can get bloated, too. Windows 98 will compress the Registry database if it has more than 500KB of wasted space, but that doesn't take care of superfluous entries that can bloat the Registry even more. Two undocumented keys in the command-line Scanreg program can help. Scanreg is the program that backs up your Registry, but it has other hidden talents, too. Begin by entering DOS mode by selecting Start, Shut Down, then click "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode" and select OK. When a DOS prompt appears, enter the command SCANREG /FIX. This command will remove superfluous Registry keys if you have any. Now enter SCANREG /OPT. This compresses the Registry. Finally, type WIN to return to Windows.

Throw Out Useless Files Most people are astounded by the number of files that exist on their hard drives--we're talking about thousands and thousands of files, many of which just aren't necessary. There's little doubt you have more files than you need. Here are some places to look for the chaff.

• Lose Leftover Installation Files Typical savings: Several megabytes Are you searching for America's Most Wanted hard drive vandal? Look no further than the typical installation program. These beasties leave junk all over the place, not just in Temp folders. If you see a folder called msstartup on your hard disk, that's one place you'll find leftover installation files. Delete this folder without fear of reprisal--after you've successfully completed the software installation. If you've installed Outlook 98 or Internet Explorer 4, you can also look for folders named Outlook 98 Setup and IE 4.0 Setup.
• Do Without Help Typical savings: Kilobytes to tens of megabytes Help files are useful when you're in a jam, but do you truly need help with Windows Solitaire program? And even if you do need remedial card game tips, do you need an additional keyword index of the Help file? If you click on any Windows Help dialog box's Find tab, you'll create these extra index files that could top 50KB each. Seek out these critters, which have the same file name as their .hlp file counterparts, but have the extension .gid. Select Start, Find, Files or Folders, enter *.gid and from the results dialog box, select and delete every name from the list. While Find is still active, search for *.hlp and delete any results that don't seem to be programs you need help with. Sol.hlp is the first to go; that's help for Solitaire. If the number of help files you want to clobber is bigger than the number of files you want to keep around, you might find it easier to select the good files, select Edit, Invert Selection then press Delete. Some programs use the extension *.cbt for their help files; trim any of these you don't need too. Special note: If you use WinZip, take care not to delete any WinZip help files. The program will refuse to launch if its help files are missing.
• Don't Read Me Typical savings: Kilobytes to tens of megabytes Practically every program you install has a Read Me file. Be honest: Do you read any of them? If not, you should. If so, do you read them more than once? It's time to clear the shelves. Use Start, Find, Files or Folders to seek out file names that match this search string: read*me. When Find is done, press Ctrl-A to select all the results, and press the Delete key. You can also browse through the files one by one and delete those you don't want.
• Roll Video Off Your Disk Typical savings: Tens of megabytes You may not have many video files on your hard disk, but the ones you have will be huge. Some Windows installations contain a wad of large .avi help files that show such things as cursors moving across screens as part of a beginner's tutorial. Lose them. Select Start, Find, Files or Folders and enter *.avi, *.mov in the "Named" box to locate these and other video files. Take your time to view them; just double-click their icons from the results area of the Find dialog to decide which files you want to keep or delete.
• Clip Out the Art Typical savings: Tens of megabytes Graphics files are big, and even though GIF and JPEG files are compressed, they still chew up a chunk of disk space. Select Start, Find, Files or Folders and enter this string in the "Named" box to find all graphics files: *.bmp, *.gif, *.jpg, *.pcx, *.tif. If you use Paint Shop Pro, add *.psp and pspbrwse.jbf to the list. Take your time to view anything you have any doubt about. You can double-click the files from the Find dialog and delete what you don't need.
• Silence the Music Typical savings: Tens of megabytes Sound files also hog hard drive space, and many are superfluous. Use Start, Find, Files or Folders to locate files that match this search string: *.wav, *.mp3, *.mid. Take your time to listen to the files by double-clicking them. If you don't like the sound, remove it from your hard drive by deleting it or putting it on removable media such a Zip or Jaz drive.
• Operating on the Operating System Windows sits on your hard disk like clutter in your grandparents' attic. You can't turn around without falling over it. Here are some prime contenders for system files to delete.
• Get Rid of Old Windows Typical savings: 33MB or more You've installed Windows 98 over your old copy of Win95, or perhaps Win98 SE over Win98. Guess what? More than 30MB of old config information is lurking on your hard drive, just in case you change your mind and want to reinstate your old operating system. If that's unlikely to happen, reclaim the space. The fastest way is to Run Disk Cleanup. Select Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. At the bottom of the list, there should be a "Delete Windows 98 uninstall information" entry. If it's not there, you're golden. If it is, place a check mark next to it, and click the OK button. If you have made the upgrade from Win 98 to Win 98 SE, this process can reclaim as much as a whopping 103MB.
• Remove a Few Window Panes Typical savings: Varies A typical installation of Windows often throws superfluous codes onto your hard drive. A really careless installation could be trimmed by 100MB without any discernible differences. To trim things down, do the following; select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon. Then click on the Windows Setup tab, and target the sections listed below. To remove an item, click on the box next to it to remove the check mark, then click Apply. If you want to remove some but not all of a setting, double-click on it, and click to remove check marks from the items you want to delete. Here are the prime candidates.
• Accessibility Options (entire group). Typical savings: 300KB for Win95, 4.7MB for Win98 Accessories
• Desktop Wallpaper (Typical savings: 600KB-700KB)
• Games (Typical savings: 600KB-900KB, 2.5MB for NT or Windows with Plus Pack)
• Mouse Pointers (Typical savings: 500KB for Windows 98, 1.4MB for Win 95 OSR2)
• ScreenSavers (Typical savings: 300KB for Win95, 1.3MB for Win95 OSR2 and Win98)
• Online User Guide Typical savings: 7.7MB, Win95 only)
• Windows 95 tour (Typical savings: 2.4MB, Win95 only)
• Win PopUp, under System Tools in Win 98 (Typical savings: 100KB)
• WordPad (Typical savings: 1.2MB for Win 95, 1.7MB for Win 98)
• Desktop Themes. Typical savings: 48.2MB; Win 98 and Plus Pack only.
• Multimedia Sound Schemes. If you use Windows default sound effects, delete all sound schemes. Otherwise, load Control Panel's Sounds settings and set Musica as the default sound scheme. At 400KB, Musica takes the least space; others run at 700KB to 3.1MB. While you're still in Sounds, select and delete the other sound schemes one by one. (Typical savings: 6.4MB-6.8MB)
• Sample Sounds. If you use a sound scheme, delete these files. (Typical savings: 700KB)
• Online Services (Win 98). You're already online, or you wouldn't be reading this. So these sign-up programs offer little purpose unless you're Microsoft's antitrust lawyers. (Typical savings: 1.2MB)
• Trim the Office Applications Microsoft Office's strength in the marketplace is as mighty as its desire to waste space on your hard drive. It's time you took back what belongs to you.
• Cut Out Some Elements Typical savings: Several to dozens of megabytes If you're not using some Office elements often, such as wizards, templates, or help files, you can remove them by using Office's setup program. You can even remove entire applications, like PowerPoint, if you never use them.
• For Office 2000, select Start, Settings, Control Panel and then double-click Add/Remove Programs option. Find Office 2000 and double-click it. Now select Add or Remove. Click any program's plus sign to list all of its elements. As you click the disk icon beside each element, elect to "Run them From CD," that is, take them off the hard disk.
• For Office 97, slip in the installation CD-ROM, and when the Autorun setup screen appears, select the program you want to trim or uninstall completely. You'll see a dialog box with an Add/Remove button. Click this and select elements you want to remove.
• Fire the Office Assistant Typical savings: Hundreds of kilobytes to more than a megabyte Does anybody like Office Assistant? It is intrusive and can slow things down a lot. Using the technique described in the previous tip, locate the Office Assistant and uninstall it. Under Office 97, this will save you 833KB. Under Office 2000, select "Run all From CD" for this option, and it will save you more than a megabyte.
• Filter Tip Typical savings: Kilobytes (varies) When you install Office applications, you're also installing a bucket of data converters and filters, many of which you don't need. Outlook fans, what do you want more, 2338KB of drive space or Schedule+ support files? If you've already installed the support files, run the installation program again, and deselect anything under Converters and Filters that looks superfluous. Here are some suggestions: Word's Excel Converter (290KB), Encapsulated PostScript Import (97KB), and Tag Image File Format Import (161KB).
• Publish and Be Damned Typical savings: Varies A full installation of Microsoft Publisher (a dark horse of the Office family) is death to drive space. There are more than 100MB of tutorials, samples, clip art, and fonts in the Office 97 version. The Office 2000 version is worse. While running the installation, look out for these space-hogging components:
• PaperDirect Templates (Typical savings: 2MB)
• Microsoft Draw and MailMerge (Typical savings: 4MB)
• Clip Art (Typical savings: 27MB of samples)  Note: These files can be axed later by deleting .cgm files from the Publisher Clip Art folder. To save a bundle in disk space, select Graphics Filters, click the Change option, then deselect any file format you'll never want import into 
• Publisher. You can use this technique to get rid of unwanted Text Converters as well.
• Beat Browser Bloat You might think your browser is your best friend, but really, it's just a black hole for precious megabytes. Browser cache files are especially nasty, especially on drives that have not been converted to Windows 98's FAT32 file system. On old-style FAT16 drives, even seemingly small files can take up more space than you think because of the inefficient way data is stored.
• Throw Your Cache Away Typical savings: Tens of megabytes, and possibly more than a hundred megabytes As you move from Web page to Web page, your browser throws files into a temporary storage area called a cache. This makes browsing faster, since the browser can access local copies of small files like graphics without having to pull them from the Web again. But it can also leave thousands of files on your disk. From time to time, it's a good idea to clear that cache out. With your browser running, you can do it by following these instructions.
• IN INTERNET EXPLORER 3 AND 4, select View, Internet Options (or just Options), and under Temporary Internet Files, click the Delete Files button.
• IN INTERNET EXPLORER 5, select Tools, Internet Options, and under Temporary Internet Files, click the Delete Files button.
• IN NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 3.X, select Options, Network Preferences, and then click Clear Disk Cache Now.
• IN NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR, select Edit, Preferences. Under Advanced, select Cache, and then click Clear Disk Cache.
• Trash the Temporary Install Files Typical savings: 16.4MB If you upgraded to Internet Explorer 4.0 using the Active Setup option, you may have a mess of installation files in a folder called IE 4.0 Setup. But once IE4 is installed, you don't need anything in this folder, so use Windows Explorer to find and delete it.
• Burn Your Bridges Typical savings: 4MB for IE 4.0, 7MB for IE 5.0 If you're sure you don't want to uninstall your current version of IE, you can reclaim 4MB or more. When you installed the software, it left backup files to make it easy to restore the program's previous setup. To kill these backups, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click the Control Panel icon for Add/Remove Programs. In the program list, double-click the Internet Explorer option. Don't worry; you won't delete the whole program by doing this. In the dialog box that follows, click the Advanced button and check the radio button labeled "Delete the backup information for Internet Explorer."
• Manage Your Mass of Mail Typical savings: Kilobytes to megabytes The more e-mail you save, the less disk space you have. Heck, that graphics-intensive "I'm your first message!" message in your Inbox takes up 22KB by itself; a couple hundred more messages and e-mail attachments really eat into your disk. Delete whatever you don't need and compact your mail database often. Select File, Compress Folders and you're all set.
• Leave It to Netscape Typical savings: Kilobytes to megabytes Why clean up your mail when you can have someone else do it? Select Edit, Preferences, click the plus sign next to the Advanced option, and then click the Disk Space option. Once here, you'll be able to reject large messages or collaborative postings, set your software to compact your message database automatically, and set an expiration date for incoming discussion groupmessages.
• Mail Call Typical savings: Kilobytes to megabytes E-mail may be free, but you pay for it in disk space, especially if your messages have file attachments or heavy graphics. Delete whatever you don't need and make sure your e-mail database is compacted often. Select File, Folder, Compact Folder (or preferably Compact All Folders). Periodically, open the Deleted Items folder, select all messages, and delete. Then select File, Folder, Compact Folder to take the air out of the database.
• Uninstall What You Don't Need Do you need everything you install? The chances are slim that you need each of those six shareware apps a day you install when you get antsy, or the Care Bears game that your daughter grew tired of long ago. So how do you get rid of software you don't use? Control Panel contains one answer--the Add/Remove Programs tool. This tool lists many, but not all, of the programs you've installed under Windows 95 and 98, some of which you'd like to remove. But while the program does a fair job of sweeping out the old, it's not perfect.
• Hunt the Program Typical savings: Megabytes If you're in a program-deleting mood, you'll usually go to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel and check the list for disposable apps. But the list often doesn't include the programs you want to lose. Another place to look is in the Start Menu itself; many apps place their uninstallers next to themselves in their own folder under Programs. What if you can't find what you're looking for? Since most Windows programs have some kind of uninstall program, search for it usingStart, Find, Files or Folders. Typical uninstall program names include unwise.exe and variants on program names that include the string "uninst." Search for these strings, and then use Windows Explorer to examine the programs' folders.
• Ditch Old Downloads Typical savings: Megabytes When downloading shareware or freeware, keep the software in a special folder, and label it something intuitive, such as Downloads. It's good practice to keep the install program in case you need to reinstall, but after you download an upgrade, delete the old installer.
• It's a Disk, Not a Digital Orphanage Typical savings: Tens of megabytes Add/Remove Programs doesn't completely live up to its name. It often leaves behind a trail of .dll files--chunks of code thrown willy-nilly during setup into various Windows folders. Once you've run Add/Remove Programs to delete something, anything left behind is going to stay there indefinitely. The only safe way to get rid of the leftovers is to use an uninstaller program such as Norton CleanSweep, McAfee Uninstaller, Symantec's Remove-It, or IMSI's WinDelete. Each of these programs can search out "orphaned" files left behind by an inefficient Uninstall. Best of all, as a hedge against accidental over-deletion of shared .dll files, they can compress and archive the files until you're sure you don't need them, whereupon you can delete them with impunity.
• Is It Gone Yet? Typical savings: Kilobytes Always check the small print when you run Add/Remove Programs. The program tells you that it did not remove all the elements of the program it just uninstalled more often than you'd think. Usually, this means that there's an uninstall application or some configuration files still left stuck in the program's folder structure. Use Windows Explorer to check in the Program Files folder for the program's folder and delete it.

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