Disc cleanup

[Guest]

When performing disc cleanup, I see that debug dump files, setup log files &
compress old files are not checked to be deleted. "Compress old files"
(whatever that means) is quite large. Should these boxes be checked &
deleted with every cleanup?

Is there anything I should know or be prepared for?

 

[Earl Grey]

Hello Julianna:

'Compress old files' means that Windows will compress files you rarely
use in order to reduce the amount of disk space they occupy. I recommend
against choosing that option, for three reasons:

1 - If you need to use any of those files in the future you're going to
have to wait a second or two while Windows expands them.
2 - If you're so short on disk space that you're resorting to
compressing old files, it's time for a larger hard disk.
3 - There have been many reports in the newsgroups that it sometimes
takes hours to compress old files.

You can delete debug dump files, if any, if they're not needed - for
example, you're not going to submit them to a technical support person.

I would leave the setup log files because they may be needed to
uninstall something you've installed. They're usually tiny, anyway, just
a few KBs.

Earl Grey

 

[Guest]

Earl,
Thanks for your reply.
Compress Old files is at 5,963,035. Is that anything to be concerned about?
I'm not short on disc space (defragging shows 82% free) but my system is
slow to load after logging on.

Out of curiosity, are these old files program files, things in my documents
or both?

 

[Earl Grey]

Hi again:

'Old' is defined as anything that hasn't been accessed in X numbers of
days. When Compress Old Files is highlighted an Options button appears.
Clicking it will allow you to set the number of days to wait before an
unaccessed file is compressed.

Earl Grey

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Earl

Item 1 -big deal!

Item 2 -just one alternative and could well be totally unnecessary.

item 3 -do you believe everything you read in the newspaper.
Compressing a file ( even a modestly sized file ) is not a lengthy
process. Users do complain that Disk CleanUp can take an excessively
long time to assess what space will be gained by compressing. Perhaps
you are confusing Disk compression withe File compression.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Julianna

The files / folders which are worth compressing are uninstall backups
in
your Windows folder e.g. $NtUninstallKB885835$. These are of some size
so you can gain significant disk space. In 95%(?) of cases users never
need to subsequently access these folders. Some users delete these
files
once they are happy that an update has been successful.

You do not have to use Disk CleanUp to compress files.
How To Use File Compression in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987

If I am interpreting your message correctly Disk CleanUp is telling
you
you can save appoaching 6 mb of disk space by compressing. This is not
a
significant amount of disk space in overall terms. I would not check
the
compress option in Disk CleanUp. Compress the Uninstall files and
leave
it at that.

If you have more than one user log on you need to run Disk Cleanup in
each User Profile.

Have you looked in the system and application logs for Warning and
Error
Reports in Event Viewer for the last boot. These can be difficult to
interpret so post copies here. Disregard Information Reports.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of
the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description are
important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and
paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event Viewer.
Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of the
message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from Event
Viewer.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~