Effective Disk Defragmentation
Written: Jan 23 '00 (Updated Jan 23 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Clean junk from your hard drive, speed up your system, load programs faster
Cons: Takes time
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| JMB623's Full Review: Microsoft Windows 98 |
If you leave your computer on all the time, Windows 98 has an automatic task manager that can do disk defragmentation at any time you set. But even if you use it, there are several steps you must take before the defrag program runs, otherwise it will move files that need not, or should not, be on your hard drive. The task monitor comes with instructions and a help file, so I’ll confine this article to making effective use of the disk defragmentation program.
Have you looked recently at C:\Windows\temp? Many programs create temporary files in this directory, and while they are supposed to delete them when you close the program, quite a few do not. A friend complained that his system was getting slower. Inspecting this directory, I found in excess of one gig of temporary files, which had to be deleted. Experts say you should delete any file from here that has not been accessed in over a week. To check that, you need to right click on each file, click properties, and see when it was last accessed. I don’t follow that rule, but rather just delete them wholesale every other day.
There is another useful program called “Disk Clean-up” (unless otherwise noted, all the programs mentioned in this article are found in ‘start/programs/accessories/system tools’). Disk Clean-up will empty your recycle bin, temporary Internet files folder, temporary files, and downloaded folder. You can choose which ones to empty. Under temporary Internet files, click view files to see some of the cookies you have. These must be deleted manually using shift click and/or control click to highlight them, then press delete. Once you’ve done that manually, close that window, and just click OK to have the other files deleted. It will run on all your hard disks. Don’t run “Disk Clean-up” until you’ve done everything else, otherwise you’ll have to go back to empty your recycle bin again.
If you have Internet Explorer 4.x or 5.x, click on tools, then Internet Options. Choose to delete temporary Internet files and the history files, then click OK, and close your browser. Neoplanet runs on IE, so you’ll clear it by clearing IE. If you did this with Disk Clean-up, it isn’t necessary to do it again in the browser (this is just an alternative).
If you have Netscape 4.x, go to c:\program files\netscape\users. You’ll find a “cookies.txt” file in each folder (default, and others you may have created by setting up profiles for alternative users) that you can read in Notepad by double-clicking it. It says do not edit, but I routinely highlight all the cookies and press delete. Notepad may give you an error message when you try to save it the first time, but the secret is to just click no when it asks to save, then just do it a second time. After you highlight and delete the cookies a second time, just click close on Notepad. It always works for me. Then open the browser, click edit, then Preferences. The opening dialog box allows you to delete the files in the history and location bar folders. Double-click “Advanced”, and then click “cache”. On this dialog box you can clear the browser’s memory and disk caches.
Next open Windows Explorer to C:\Windows\cookies. Open this folder to delete more cookies. Close Explorer and go to your start menu, highlight “Find”, then click “Files or Folders”. Make sure it is set to search your “C” drive, then type *.chk in the file to find box. Click search, and if it finds any of these, right-click each one and choose delete.
There are nooks and crannies everywhere in Windows where useless files are kept, but those above are the worst space hogs. Now you can run the standard “Scandisk” on your hard drive(s), being sure to check the box instructing it to fix any errors it finds.
Now open “Disk Defragmenter”, click settings, and check the boxes for “rearrange my programs so they load faster”, “check drive for errors”, and “every time”. Before you start the program, hold down CONTROL and ALT, then press DELETE. In that dialog box, highlight each program, then click “End Task”. * BUT DON’T HIGHLIGHT AND CLICK END TASK ON EITHER “EXPLORER” OR “SYSTRAY”. * Close all running programs, close anything on your task bar, and close everything with an icon in your system tray (where the clock is). Make sure Disk Defragmenter is set to work on your “C” drive and click start. Depending on how large your hard drive is, and how long since the last defragmentation, this could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Do it at least once a week, maybe on Sunday nights.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Joel
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