I need help!

[twinkie]

I need some help in cleaning out my computer. I know how to clean out my internet files & history files. But I need to remove some unused programs & stuff from my computer. I am trying to improve the performance of this thing. I am on the verge of going out & going in debt for a new computer! It is driving me crazy. I have alot of games that came with this computer. Some of which we hardly ever use. I have thought about compressing; but some have said not to because it could cause problems later. I need to make some more space on my computer; someone told me I could just compress the games & stuff like that. If there is a way to compress without compressing windows too--- please let me know. I am ready to throw this thing out the window! Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Steve R Jones]

Click on Start->Settings->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs and remove what your not using.

Removing old stuff isn't going to help the preformance of the machine much if any at all. Unless of course your hdd is 95percent full.

[stylin19]

You didnt mention which Operating System you use. A version of windows ? which one?
If windows,
In addition to steve's advice, in add/remove programs, select windows setup. start going through each item to see if you use/need it.

For instance, do you have "accessability" checked ? this is for people with physical impairments. If you don't need it, deselect it.

Click on details in "accessories' and see if you need/use all that stuff. Do you use "IMAGING" ? if not, deselect it.
How about Themes ? do you really use themes ( if you have PLUS installed), if not, deselect it and free up 30mb of space.
You get the picture.
When in doubt, don't.

Next, go into windows explorer, on the menu select view, then options. make sure "show all files" is checked. ( this option is in different places if Win98 )

Next, empty the recycle bin.

Next, in windows explorer, do a find on *.gid
GID file type is created everytime you go into a program's help menu. When you exit the help menu, the GID is still there. you can delete ALL files that have a *.GID extension.

Windows "TOUR" is the cutsey little slideshow that shows you "how to" do things. If you deselected it in "windows setup" above, you can remove *.avi files in the windows\help folder ONLY.

If you intalled win98 or win95 over a previous version of Windows, you may have created a backup of the old Windows version. If you will never go back to the old version, you can delete the backups. Do a "find" on winundo.* You can delete all these.

Next, go into windows\temp folder and delete everything in there. Leave it in the recycle bin for a few days. If no problems, empty recycle bin.

Next, run "scan disk" with the thorough option. ( will take awhile to complete )
Then run "defrag" , this also may take a long time to complete. I would think about running these utilities on a weekly basis.

After these are conplete, you might to think about ( if you have Win98 ) converting to FAT32, if you don't have FAT32 already. This could free up to 15% of space being used.

Take things slow, when in doubt, don't, come back and ask instead.

good luck

[Richard_Cranium72]

In addition to the scandisc and defrag, go to start> run, type "msconfig" enter. Go to the startup tab, uncheck everything you don't use everytime you boot up. Keep scanreg, system tray, anti-virus. This will free up lots of resources. Drag a icon to the taskbar for system information and look at it when you're getting slow. If the machine starts getting sluggish, press, ctl+alt+del once and end task on whatever prog that you're not using and see if the resources improve. Some claim adding ram helps with this, it may if everything is running right, but some programs "leak" memory or some others hold and won't release it ie. MS Picture It. hope this helps DrVette