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BOOT CAMP 208 (15/12/01)
FREEING UP DISC SPACE
Disc space, or rather the lack of it used to be a major
headache for PC users but with the introduction of inexpensive multi-gigabyte
hard drives in the late 1990s it became less of an problem, for a while at
least... However, Parkinson’s Law has a PC corollary and just as work always
expands to fill the time available, so computer software always manages to soak
up free space on your hard disc drive.
Much of the blame for this constantly growing demand for disc
space can be laid at the door of devices like digital cameras and camcorders,
new pastimes like downloading music from the Internet, fat attachment-laden
emails and of course the latest versions of applications and operating systems.
It’s not too bad on PCs bought within the last year or two, most of which come
with 10 gigabyte or larger hard discs but older machines, with smaller drives
can quickly become overloaded with picture and sound files.
This week we’re looking at ways of reclaiming wasted space --
as much as several hundred megabytes in some cases -- which should buy you a
little breathing space, but in the end, if your drive is close to overflowing
the only solution is to upgrade, or add a second ‘slave’ drive (see Boot Camps
87 and 88).
Before we begin, however, a few ground rules. Whenever you
delete a program or application from your PC always use the Add/Remove utility
in Control Panel or the program’s own uninstaller and only delete one item at a
time, after which re-boot your PC and keep a sharp eye out for error messages.
When deleting files and folders always leave them in the Recycle Bin for a day
or two, just in case you’ve removed something important, or you change your
mind.
The first step is to give your hard disc a really thorough
spring clean and uninstall any programs that you no longer need or use. There
are probably lots of them especially you are a regular reader of computer
magazines with free cover discs. Go to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and
work your way down the list. You should be ruthless with old games and long
forgotten demo programs but if there’s anything you’re not sure about it’s
better to be safe than sorry and leave it alone.
Not all programs are listed in Add/Remove Programs so click
on any unwanted items on the Programs list (on the Start button) to see if they
have their own uninstaller utilities. Never delete a program’s file folder in
Windows Explorer, this may leave file fragments and Registry entries, which can
generate error messages and upset Windows.
If you upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows 98 or later, and
you’re happy with it, you can safely delete around 80Mb or so of uninstallation
files, which allow you to revert to the old operating system. Go to Start >
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disc Cleanup. Click 'OK' for
Drive C and select the Disc Cleanup tab, on the Files To Delete list check the
box next to 'Delete Windows 98 uninstall information' and click OK. Afterwards
it’s a good idea to run the disc Defragmenter (Start > Programs >
Accessories > System Tools). Whilst
we’re on the subject of Windows 95 upgrades, if you haven’t yet converted to the
more efficient FAT 32 filing system do so now. It can free up a lot of hard disc
space and should make Windows and your applications run a little faster. Full
details can be found in Windows Help, just type FAT 32 in the Index search
field.
A lot of programs these days have multimedia content, such as
tutorials and videos, these files can be huge, often running to several tens of
megabytes. To find out if there are any lurking on your PC go to Search or Find
on the Start menu and select Files or Folders, in the Search window type ‘.*avi’
(without the quotes) and this will seek out any video files. Sort them according
to how much space they occupy by clicking on the ‘Size’ column heading once, (or
twice), to get the largest files at the top of the list. Double click on each
one in turn and this should open Windows Media Player and play the video. Delete
those you don’t want but before you empty the Recycle Bin you should launch the
program they are associated with, just to make sure they’re not needed.
That should take care of the obvious dead wood but many
programs conceal large files that won’t necessarily show up in Windows Explorer.
There’s a fair selection of automatic disc cleaner utilities on the market that
will automatically search out hidden, redundant and duplicate files but they
need to be used with caution. They can sometimes delete important system files
and Registry entries or waste time flagging up lots of small and relatively
innocuous files. I prefer to concentrate on the big space wasters and look for
them manually. A utility called Disc Space Explorer displays disc usage –
including hidden files – as an easy to understand pie chart. You can then decide
whether to keep them or not, and use the program to delete the files. A 30-day
trial version can be found at:
http://www.east-tec.com/download/index.htm.
Next week – Managing your files
JARGON FILTER
.avi
Audio-Video Interleaved, standard format for PC video
files
FAT 32
File Allocation Table (32-bit) – efficient indexing system
used by Windows 98/SE/ME and XP to control where and how data is stored on a
hard disc.
REGISTRY
A large, constantly changing file in Windows containing
details of how your PC is set up and configuration information for all the
programs stored on the hard disc
TOP TIP
Fonts don’t necessarily take up a lot of space but over time
you can accumulate hundreds of them, most of which you’ll never use, but how do
you tell which ones are worth keeping? A tiny (50kb) Freeware program called
FontList displays a sample of every font in your Internet browser, so you can
decide which ones to keep and which to delete (using Fonts in Control Panel).
FontList should only take a few seconds to download and it can be found at: http://www.bitstorm.org/fontlist/
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