Spring clean your computer

Are you getting the most out of your operating system? Not the sexiest question in the world but extremely important to the vital statistics of your computer. If you use Windows, you can do some simple things to your system to run at peak efficiency. Think of the following as a gentle form of colonic irrigation.

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Performing routine maintenance on your computer is not hard; just identify the files you can safely remove, and then use Windows Explorer or My Computer to get rid of them. Freeing your hard disk of unused files will not only give you lots of extra space, it will help Windows run faster.

A Brief Message to All Windows 98 Users
Windows 98 comes with a very useful utility called Disk Cleanup, which identifies most of the unwanted files in the following list and then deletes them for you. Just choose Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup to start it.

However, even if you use Disk Cleanup, you may want to scan the following list for other files you can remove. You'll find another utility on the System Tools menu as well: the Maintenance Wizard. The Wizard can schedule many of the maintenance tasks that will be discussed throughout this four-part series.

The Files You Should Look For.
Here are some places to look for files you don't really need:

The Recycle Bin
If you use Windows 95 or 98, when you delete a file it hasn’t really been removed from the hard disk. Instead, it has moved to the Recycle Bin, where it stays until you 'take out the rubbish' - empty the bin.

That allows you to get files back if you later discover that you've deleted them accidentally. On the other hand, it also uses up a lot of valuable disk space on files that you wanted to get rid of a long time ago. To empty the bin, right-click on the Recycle Bin icon (it's on the desktop) and select Empty Recycle Bin, then click Yes to continue.

You can double-click the Recycle Bin icon to view the files in it before you delete them permanently by emptying the bin. If you see something you want to save and not delete, just right-click it and choose Restore.