The Spin

Every computer requires certain diagnostic and maintenance routines performed on it to keep in in top working order. Just as your car needs a tune-up and oil change occasionlly, so does your computer. Below are several options available to help clear off some harddrive space and improve system performance and speed. All of these routines should be run periodically (every few months) to ensure your computer is tuned and running at it fullest capacity.

The Procedure

• Clear browser Cache - In Netscape versions 3.x, You select Options from the toolbar, select Network Preferences, and select the Cache tab. This will bring you to a screen containing two buttons. One is labeled Clear Memory Cache, the other Clear Disk Cache. Press each of these buttons. After pressing each button, Netscape will give you a confirmation window. Simply choose OK.
  • In versions 4.x, select Edit from the toolbar, select Preferences, click on the + sign next to the word Advanced, and select Cache. This will show you the same two buttons as in version 3.x for clearing the cache. Follow the same directions as above.

• Delete .CHK files - These are useless file fragments that linger behind on the harddrive, usually a result of running scandisk. They have no applicable purpose and simply take up space and resources. Goto START, select Find, select Files or Folders. Type in *.CHK in the Named line, select Find Now. It will display all matches to the query, Any matches it finds, you can delete right from that window.

• MSCREATE.DIR files - These are "Middle-Man" folders that get created during the Office97 install. Basically these folders are created, files are copied to them during the install process, then those files are transferred to the harddrive. However, these "Middle-Man" folders are left behind for no apparent reason other than an oversight on the part of the office programmers. Goto START, select Find, select Files or Folders. Type in MSCREATE.DIR in the Named line, select Find Now. It will display all matches to the query, Any matches it finds, you can delete right from that window.

• Check your network drives periodically - N: and L: are the two most common network directories used by people on campus. Each area is assigned so much space for their network drives. When that space fills up, users are no longer able to save files there and some programs that may depend on network space, will cease to funcion properly until space is cleared up on these drives. The problem can exist where someone in a department is using an excessive amount of space. This means that even if you as an individual have nothing on the network drives, if someone "eats up" all the network space, you too will be affected. When this happens, we usually recommend sending out a department-wide email telling everyone to clear off some files from the network.

• Discretion for .TMP files - Temporary files over time will add up on your harddrive. These files are usually worthless bits of data that have been created by a variety of programs. For example, many word processing programs will make a copy of a file you are working many times as part of its recovery features. However, these temp files aren't always purged when you finish or close out of a document. Goto START, select Find, select Files or Folders. Type in *.TMP in the Named line, select Find Now. It will display all matches to the query, Any matches it finds, you can delete right from that window.

• Scandisk & Disk Defragmenter - Scandisk and Defrag are programs that should be run periodically to help improve speed and performance of your machine. Scandisk checks the disk surface of the harddrive, fixes damaged files, and removes file fragments. These file fragments are the result of system crashes and power failures. Defrag shifts programs around the harddrive so that they are continuous rather than in pieces spread out across the harddrive. This allows for faster access of these programs. Both these programs are located in the same place on the menu and both will have more of an impact when run after any or all of the above steps. Goto Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools.
  • For Scandisk, select the drive you wish to scan. You then have the option to select Standard or Thorough. The Thorough takes a little longer but is worth it in the long run. Also check the Automatically Fix errors box. Press START. When it finishes, it will give a report of its findings. Click OK to clear this screen. This should be run once every month or two.

  • For Defrag, choose the drive you wish to defragment. Choose OK. A dialog box will appear letting you know the percentage of the harddrive that is fragmented. If this number is 4% or lower, choose Exit. There is little need to Defrag such a small amount. Anything larger than 4%, select Start. This will take a little time but again, it is worth it. When it finishes, it will ask you to exit. This should be checked monthly. How often it should be run is dependent on the percentage that is fragmented.

• Clean out your startup folder of unneeded programs. You can right click on your Start button and then just select "Open" from the menu. Open the Programs folder, then the Startup folder and simply delete any superfluous items that do not need to be loading when Windows boots.

• Go to Add/Remove programs and remove any unnecesary programs. Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel and find Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel window. By default the Add/Remove tab should be selected, if not select it. Scroll through the list of programs installed and click on the Add/Remove button to run the uninstall for any unused programs.

• You can delete *.txt, *.prv,*.old, and *.___ from the root directory (c:\) also you can safely delete *.log, *.old, *.___, *.bak, and *.00? (what the question means is that any number so from dos in the windows directory you can just type deltree *.00? and that should free up some disk space.

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E-mail comments to Lon Jarvis jarvislb@jmu.edu
last updated 11/11/03