Disk Imaging Cleanup Steps
Run these disk-cleanup steps prior to backing up a hard disk; this will save you time and disk space. These steps work for Windows 7, Vista and XP. Update: Modified for Windows 7 on 2010.08.
Disk Image backups take considerable time to spin because an average Windows Vista hard disk has 80+Gig of data. This translates into a dozen compressed DVD disks. But for many machines, half of this space are temp files. If you could delete these, the resulting backup would take half the time and half the space.
Other directly-related articles:
Check Current Disk-space use
Ideally, close all programs and reboot the computer; this helps clean up and date current temp files, making later steps slightly easier.
Open MyComputer (or Explorer). Other-mouse-click Drive C: and select "Properties" to see how much drive space is being used.
For example, my computer was using a total 37G of space (illustrated as the blue and yellow sections); when I finished with these steps, I reduced my total disk space, leaving only the blue-section. This is your goal:
(Click image for a larger view, Back to return)Steps for Disk Cleanup
1. Using The Disk Cleanup Utility:
As you install new software and Microsoft Updates, Windows builds System Backup files. These take a lot of space and they can be deleted. This single step can recover most of the disk space for most people. Do this step each time you make a backup.
a. Using Windows Explorer, highlight Drive C:. Other-mouse-click and select "Properties" (illustration, above)
b. In the General tab, click the "Disk Cleanup" button just below the pie-chart. This will take a half-minute to load. Vista will prompt "Choose which files to cleanup"
Select "Files from all users...".
2. Click the top-tab "More Options"
If using Windows 7, click "Clean up System Files", then click the Tab.
a. Click the System Restore and Shadow Copy's "Clean-up" button.
b. Click OK to "Delete all but the most recent restore points."
c. Click OK and OK to begin the cleanup.
This will take several minutes and you may or may not see an hour glass, depending on your version of Windows. After a few moments you will be prompted: "Delete Files".
Of all the steps documented here, this will recover the most disk space. On my system, this usually frees up about 15Gig of space! This alone is worth a few DVDs. Check your free-space again to see if this helped.
3. One-time Step: Hibernation File
Decision: The Windows Hibernation file holds a backup of RAM when you want to quickly shut down and restart a laptop. This feature is most often used with laptop computers. If you use this feature, skip this step. But on desktops, this is seldom needed and doing a one-time delete can save 2 to 6 GB of disk space. I delete this file on all of my computers and this is a one-time step.
If Windows XP:
a. On the first tab of the Disk Properties screen (step 1, above), examine the 'Files To Delete' checkboxes. By checking the Hibernation box, deletes the file. After checking, continue with the same cleanup steps in steps 1 and 2. If you do not see this box, the feature has already been deleted.
b. In Control Panel, click 'Performance and Maintenance', Power Options, Hibernate tab. Uncheck Enable hibernation.
If Windows 7:
Disable the Hibernation feature with these somewhat tedious one-time steps:
a. Control Panel, Power Options. Click on the current "Change Plan Settings"
b. Click on the bottom "Change Advanced Power Settings"
c. Click "Change Settings that are currently unavailable"
d. Click "+" and open the Sleep section; confirm "Hibernate After" is set to Never.
e. Make this same change to the other plans
f. Next, click Start, locate a "Command Prompt" (DOS). Other mouse-click the Command-Prompt menu choice and "Run as Administrator".
g. At the DOS prompt, type "PowerCFG -h off" (no quotes). Close the DOS Box and save Control Panel changes. You will note a file "C:\Windows\hyberfil.sys" will have been deleted.
4. Empty and Compact your Email programs.Most people have never done this and over the years the Email databases get huge.
Within your email program, begin by opening the "SENT" folder and deleting older messages, keeping the most recent month or so (do this for Mozilla's Thunderbird's Email Client or with Outlook). Then, continue below with additional cleanup steps.
With Mozilla's Thunderbird
5. Clean your Browser Cache:
With Mozilla's FireFox
6. Delete "Temp" folder contents:
There are several TEMP folders that can be cleaned up (leaving the folders, but deleting their contents). You may or may not have folders in these locations and there may not be files -- but on some systems, there might be thousands of files tucked away in these temp folders:
Microsoft hides these folders from most users and you will need to expose them before you can manipulate their contents. Do the following:
Expose Temp Folders (one-time step):
a. Open Windows Explorer. Select top-menu Tools, Folder Options, View.
b. Check "Show hidden files and folders"
c. Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file-types..."
d. Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files..."
e. Click "Apply to all folders", then OK
Delete Files in Temp Folders
Here are likely places where temp-folders can be found:
For each path, open use Windows Explorer to open and highlight each folder, starting with C:\Documents and Settings\(your user-id)\Local Settings\Temp (if XP).
a. While highlighting the folder, Select the top-menu, View, by "Details."
b. Click on the "Date" column header, to sort by Date.
c. Highlight all files older than today by clicking the first in the list, and shift-clicking the last file in the list (selecting all files older than your most recent reboot).
d. Press Delete to delete the highlighted files.
Don't worry if some of the files can't be deleted because they are in-use.
7. Delete old Uninstall Files:
With Windows XP and Vista: Use Explorer, open the main C:\Windows folder. You may find a large list of folders with names such as "$NtUninstallKB9x".... and usually the filenames are blue. From Windows Explorer's detail side, delete all of these types of folders; there may be dozens of them. These are rollback files and are safe to delete. Neither you nor your computer will miss them.
Steps: Click the first blue folder; then shift-click the last blue folder. Press Delete. You may be bugged about deleting an executable -- allow it to happen.
8. Add Remove unneeded programs:
Continue with this recommended steps: In Vista/Windows 7's Control Panel, click "Programs and Features" (for Windows XP, use the Control Panel's "Add-Remove Programs").
Un-install unneeded programs, such as old photo editors and old games.
9. Examine the "Prefetch" folder:
Using Windows Explorer, locate the folder C:\Windows\Prefetch. Examine this folder.
Many websites recommend deleting the contents of this folder, but this is an urban myth. However, I have seen a malfunction here, especially on Windows XP computers.
Normally, the folder should contain about 128 files, but if this folder contains many hundreds of files, it is not behaving properly. In this case delete all the files (including "layout.ini") but leave the directory in place. Otherwise, if 128 files or less, leave the folder alone. This is a one-time step and once cleaned this step can be ignored.
Compare your Free-space results:
Check your work by looking at your free disk space. On my disk, I now have about 20GB of used disk space, down from 37GB. This is a typical result and as you can tell, this saves a lot of time and DVD's. Total cleanup time: about 5 minutes. This is also a great time to defragment the disk.
Your comments on this article are welcome.
Related Articles:
USB Drive Backup Speed SlowAcronis 2010 Step-by-Step
Acronis vs Ghost -- Review of Disk Imaging Programs
Maxtor External USB Drive - Review
Optimizing the Windows Swap File
Disk Image backups take considerable time to spin because an average Windows Vista hard disk has 80+Gig of data. This translates into a dozen compressed DVD disks. But for many machines, half of this space are temp files. If you could delete these, the resulting backup would take half the time and half the space.Other directly-related articles:
Check Current Disk-space use
Ideally, close all programs and reboot the computer; this helps clean up and date current temp files, making later steps slightly easier.
Open MyComputer (or Explorer). Other-mouse-click Drive C: and select "Properties" to see how much drive space is being used.
For example, my computer was using a total 37G of space (illustrated as the blue and yellow sections); when I finished with these steps, I reduced my total disk space, leaving only the blue-section. This is your goal:
(Click image for a larger view, Back to return)1. Using The Disk Cleanup Utility:
As you install new software and Microsoft Updates, Windows builds System Backup files. These take a lot of space and they can be deleted. This single step can recover most of the disk space for most people. Do this step each time you make a backup.
a. Using Windows Explorer, highlight Drive C:. Other-mouse-click and select "Properties" (illustration, above)
b. In the General tab, click the "Disk Cleanup" button just below the pie-chart. This will take a half-minute to load. Vista will prompt "Choose which files to cleanup"
Select "Files from all users...".
2. Click the top-tab "More Options"
If using Windows 7, click "Clean up System Files", then click the Tab.
a. Click the System Restore and Shadow Copy's "Clean-up" button.
b. Click OK to "Delete all but the most recent restore points."
c. Click OK and OK to begin the cleanup.
This will take several minutes and you may or may not see an hour glass, depending on your version of Windows. After a few moments you will be prompted: "Delete Files".
Of all the steps documented here, this will recover the most disk space. On my system, this usually frees up about 15Gig of space! This alone is worth a few DVDs. Check your free-space again to see if this helped.
3. One-time Step: Hibernation File
Decision: The Windows Hibernation file holds a backup of RAM when you want to quickly shut down and restart a laptop. This feature is most often used with laptop computers. If you use this feature, skip this step. But on desktops, this is seldom needed and doing a one-time delete can save 2 to 6 GB of disk space. I delete this file on all of my computers and this is a one-time step.
If Windows XP:
a. On the first tab of the Disk Properties screen (step 1, above), examine the 'Files To Delete' checkboxes. By checking the Hibernation box, deletes the file. After checking, continue with the same cleanup steps in steps 1 and 2. If you do not see this box, the feature has already been deleted.
b. In Control Panel, click 'Performance and Maintenance', Power Options, Hibernate tab. Uncheck Enable hibernation.If Windows 7:
Disable the Hibernation feature with these somewhat tedious one-time steps:
a. Control Panel, Power Options. Click on the current "Change Plan Settings"
b. Click on the bottom "Change Advanced Power Settings"
c. Click "Change Settings that are currently unavailable"
d. Click "+" and open the Sleep section; confirm "Hibernate After" is set to Never.
e. Make this same change to the other plans
f. Next, click Start, locate a "Command Prompt" (DOS). Other mouse-click the Command-Prompt menu choice and "Run as Administrator".
g. At the DOS prompt, type "PowerCFG -h off" (no quotes). Close the DOS Box and save Control Panel changes. You will note a file "C:\Windows\hyberfil.sys" will have been deleted.
4. Empty and Compact your Email programs.Most people have never done this and over the years the Email databases get huge.
Within your email program, begin by opening the "SENT" folder and deleting older messages, keeping the most recent month or so (do this for Mozilla's Thunderbird's Email Client or with Outlook). Then, continue below with additional cleanup steps.
With Mozilla's Thunderbird
- Select File, "Empty Trash"
- followed by File, "Compact Folders", in this order.
- Select the Trash Folder;
- Highlight all messages (click the first message, Shift-click the last message), then press Delete.
- Select Edit, "Purge Deleted Messages".
- Next, select File, "Data File Management", select your "Personal Folder", click "Settings.
- On the General Tab, click Compact Now.
- Click OK (twice) then Close.
5. Clean your Browser Cache:
With Mozilla's FireFox
- Select Tools, Clear Private Data.
- Accept the defaults and generally do not erase the cookies.
- While you are in the program, consider these two changes: Select Tools, Options, Advanced and change the Cache to 8 or 10 MB, instead of the default 100MB.
- This is cleaned in a step below or you can launch IE, selecting Tools, Internet Options,
- In Browsing History, select "Delete..."
- Choose "Delete Temporary Internet Files".
- While you are in the program, select Tools, Internet Options, General.
- In the Browser History Section, select Settings and change the "Disk Space to Use" to 8MB.
6. Delete "Temp" folder contents:
There are several TEMP folders that can be cleaned up (leaving the folders, but deleting their contents). You may or may not have folders in these locations and there may not be files -- but on some systems, there might be thousands of files tucked away in these temp folders:
Microsoft hides these folders from most users and you will need to expose them before you can manipulate their contents. Do the following:
Expose Temp Folders (one-time step):
a. Open Windows Explorer. Select top-menu Tools, Folder Options, View.
b. Check "Show hidden files and folders"
c. Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file-types..."
d. Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files..."
e. Click "Apply to all folders", then OK
Delete Files in Temp Folders
Here are likely places where temp-folders can be found:
- C:\Documents and Settings\(your userid)\Local Settings\Temp (XP)
- C:\Users\(your userid)\AppData\Local\Temp (Vista)
- C:\TEMP (you may not have this folder)
- C:\Windows\Temp
For each path, open use Windows Explorer to open and highlight each folder, starting with C:\Documents and Settings\(your user-id)\Local Settings\Temp (if XP).
a. While highlighting the folder, Select the top-menu, View, by "Details."
b. Click on the "Date" column header, to sort by Date.
c. Highlight all files older than today by clicking the first in the list, and shift-clicking the last file in the list (selecting all files older than your most recent reboot).
d. Press Delete to delete the highlighted files.
Don't worry if some of the files can't be deleted because they are in-use.7. Delete old Uninstall Files:
With Windows XP and Vista: Use Explorer, open the main C:\Windows folder. You may find a large list of folders with names such as "$NtUninstallKB9x".... and usually the filenames are blue. From Windows Explorer's detail side, delete all of these types of folders; there may be dozens of them. These are rollback files and are safe to delete. Neither you nor your computer will miss them.
Steps: Click the first blue folder; then shift-click the last blue folder. Press Delete. You may be bugged about deleting an executable -- allow it to happen.
8. Add Remove unneeded programs:
Continue with this recommended steps: In Vista/Windows 7's Control Panel, click "Programs and Features" (for Windows XP, use the Control Panel's "Add-Remove Programs").
Un-install unneeded programs, such as old photo editors and old games.
9. Examine the "Prefetch" folder:
Using Windows Explorer, locate the folder C:\Windows\Prefetch. Examine this folder.
Many websites recommend deleting the contents of this folder, but this is an urban myth. However, I have seen a malfunction here, especially on Windows XP computers.
Normally, the folder should contain about 128 files, but if this folder contains many hundreds of files, it is not behaving properly. In this case delete all the files (including "layout.ini") but leave the directory in place. Otherwise, if 128 files or less, leave the folder alone. This is a one-time step and once cleaned this step can be ignored.
Compare your Free-space results:
Check your work by looking at your free disk space. On my disk, I now have about 20GB of used disk space, down from 37GB. This is a typical result and as you can tell, this saves a lot of time and DVD's. Total cleanup time: about 5 minutes. This is also a great time to defragment the disk.
Your comments on this article are welcome.
Related Articles:
USB Drive Backup Speed SlowAcronis 2010 Step-by-Step
Acronis vs Ghost -- Review of Disk Imaging Programs
Maxtor External USB Drive - Review
Optimizing the Windows Swap File
Disk Imaging Cleanup Steps
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