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Manually Deleting Unwanted Files

Recently we have been contacted by several of our customers asking what to do if their hard drive gets filled up. So here are some general hard drive maintenance ideas you might try on your business, home or laptop computers. It's probably not a good idea to do this on the company network drives as this is best left to the IT staff.

Typically if a hard drive starts to approach 25% or less free space things can start to happen that are real strange. The first thing you need to do is try and free up some space. There are a lot of "junk" files that can load up on a hard drive that have absolutely no utilitarian value. Get rid of them!

Here's how to do this (We are assuming you are using Windows running on a PC ... if not stop here):
  • Go to the Start button on the lower left of your screen
  • Go to find Files and Folders
  • In the space that says NAMED type in one of the designated file extensions below
  • If any files show up delete them by taking them to your Recycle Bin

File Extension

Description

*.bak

 Backup Files

*.bkp

 Backup Files

*.tmp

 Temporary Application Files

*.~*

 Temporary Application Files

~*.*

 Usually Microsoft work files

*.old

 Needs no explanation

*.$$$

 Work Files

*.diz

 Marketing files that come with shareware

Readme.txt

 Startup files that are included with most software packages

MSCreate.dir

 Small control files Widows places into directories you create

*.gid

 Hidden index files created when you first access Windows 95 help files. These can really eat up space

*.log

 Log files that are created to show types of activity that you'll never look at

Check your Temp directories for junk files that can load up in there. Get rid of them!

Last is one of the most important. Be sure to clean out the "Cache File" weekly as a minimum. This can load up with huge amounts of junk files from the Internet. These files don't do anything! Go to your browser and look in Help for information about how to clean out "Cache" files.

Also, it is a good idea to run Scandisk and Defragmentation (in this order) every once in awhile. These maintenance Programs can be found by clicking Start (on the lower left of your screen) and finding them on the Program Window. Sometimes they are set up under Accessories.

If you have any questions contact Customer Service

 

 

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