Is your computer slower than it used to be? Check your hard drive. If it is half full or more, then clearing out unnecessary files might speed up the computer.
Have a look at your hard drive. On a windows computer, it is located at My Computer. Find the local drive, usually C and right click it. Choose the Properties and see what you have there.
If the pie is halfway filled or more, then it is past time to clear out all of those files. A few days ago, I cleaned out several gigs of clutter from my computer and its pie looks like this:
I am not finished cleaning out old files yet. I have 20 Gigs more to burn on DVD’s. Then I need to start backing up the network files. My computer is the depository for all computers in this house.
On my, I just checked the Shared Docs and this is what the computer has.
What I am doing is burning photo files and other large files to DVD’s and then I am deleting the files. I work at my computer and I am not deleting my work files, but I did back them up.
I removed most unused programs and have a few more to remove. That will free up several more gigs.
Another pit of files to look for is the temporary internet files. Your browser should have a place that will allow you to easily delete those. I usually go straight to the folder and pick through it. While I am in the neighborhood, I dump the temp folder.
When I am finished, I will run the disk defragmenter.
And- When I am finished with this blog entry, I am going to delete from the computer the three images that I made just for this entry. 😛 Those images really pile up. (done)
Donna Young
Related:
Computer – Background Tasks
chocolatechic says
Temp files…is that what stores the passwords to everywhere I visit on the internet and my computer says “do you want me to remember this password” and I click yes, so my brain has a chance to work?
Donna Young says
The file that stores your password is called a cookie. The cookies are in a Cookie folder and they are in Temporary Internet Files.
The Temp folder holds things which are downloaded, but not to a specific folder. For instance, if you view an online pdf file, it first goes into Temp. The Temp folder also holds files that the computer creates or that a program creates for certain temporary purposes.
Tresses says
Holy mackeral! My hard drive is over 75% full! 😯 I have a ton of photos that I need to put on CD. Some I have, but still have not deleted from the hard drive. We regularly clean out the temp files. Guess it’s time to tackle the rest. Nothing says “Get to it!” like a visual. Thanks, Donna. 🙂
Elaine says
Mine is running great and is pretty empty after the crash and losing all my files 😥 I wish I had this problem and could solve it by backing up that which I couldn’t replace or afford to replace.
Kathy says
I use window washer to help me clean out all the extrra stuff.
Donna Young says
Elaine, that is so sad that you lost your files. 🙁
I spent a bit of time today cleaning out more files. My hard drive is now a very nice 17% full. 😎
On the other hand, I added 140MB of images today. 🙄