Why Disk Cleanup Matters, and How You Can Get It Done

POSTED ON JANUARY 4, 2013 · POSTED IN INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS

I suppose it’s because I’m a geek at heart, but I’m fascinated by the concept of disk cleanup…

Why Disk Cleanup capability is important for you

By Disk Cleanup I mean deleting unnecessary files from the Hard Disk on your own PC. Unnecessary
can mean many things – obsolete system files, temporary files, corrupted files… but more importantly,
user files, files you’ve saved to your disk in the past and no longer need. This may be because you have
newer versions of them, or because you have duplicates of the same version in different folders, or
because they’re safely stored elsewhere… or simply because you’ve run out of space. All files you could
do without – if you knew which ones and where they are.

Why do you even care to have such files on your disk? You may rightly say that disk storage is so
cheap, you can have all the files you want without running out of space. But the point is that even with
unlimited space, you wouldn’t want your files to run out of control: having multiple copies or old versions
of the same file may lead to confusion, bloat your disk backups, prolong your virus scans, and, yes – run
you out of disk space, because it’s true that you have lots of space, but usage grows to fill the available
space; especially if you’re into large media files – all the more so if you use a faster but smaller Flash-
based Solid State Drive (SSD), which I strongly recommend you do.

Things get worse if you work in an organization that tries to manage your disk by placing quotas on
either what you store or what you’re allowed to back up (if you don’t back your data up, read this and do
it!). Once you have a quota, you need to trim your stuff – and you need to do it intelligently; which is why
you need disk cleanup tools like those I discuss below.

Basic disk cleanup you already have in Windows

Microsoft Windows contains a built-in tool called (somewhat unimaginatively) Disk Cleanup that most
users probably haven’t even heard of. This tool scans your disk and shows you what you may delete, and
how much space you will recover thereby. It can identify accumulated fluff like temporary files, old log
files, old restore points and backup files, and many others. You can tell it to delete the files and you can
compress old files to save space.

This can be quite useful: it told me that I have more than 400MB of unneeded “per user queued
Windows error reports” – and I don’t even know what those are!…
The shortcoming of this tool is that it won’t address user data – your documents, photos and such. For
those you need to look beyond Windows.

Duplicate file detection tools you can get today

Fortunately there many third party utilities you can get that do look at your own data. For example:

 Fast duplicate file finder

 Auslogics Duplicate File Finder
 Duplicate Cleaner
 And many others.
These tools usually have a free or trial version you can download, and some offer a reasonably priced
“pro” version as well. I haven’t tested them all, but if you’re comfortable with shareware you’ll find your
way around them easily. Just be sure to have a backup (I said that already, right?) before testing them!

These tools primarily identify duplicate files, and let you preview them and decide what to delete.
They can compare file names and sizes, but they usually also detect files with the same content even if
they’ve been renamed. And they find loads of stuff – Fast duplicate file finder scanned my “My
documents” folder and found some 1400 groups of duplicate files!

Now it gets interesting

Deleting duplicates is easy… but what if you need even more space? Then you may need to make a
crueler cut, and delete files you have only one copy of. How do you choose them?

The trick is to find those files that are (a) largest, and (b) least important. With tens of thousands of files in
a thousand sub folders, how do you do it? This is where you need a tool like Treesize Personal. This one
also does duplicate finding, but its focus is on visualizing a disk so you can see at a glance which
subfolders and files contain the most megabytes. Click “top 100 files” and you get a listing of the largest
“offenders” across the entire disk, allowing you to figure which ones have outlived their usefulness to you
(I found I have not one but two copies of a bloated installation file for the drivers that came with a camera
I no longer even have!)

And you get an unplanned perk: once you start mucking in your old files, using a tool that makes the
mucking easy and intuitive, you discover lots of interesting old stuff – family photos you haven’t seen for
ages, drafts of creative work you’d never completed, eBooks you may want to revisit… an interesting mix
of nostalgia, ideas for new projects and plain fun.

What IT ought to do about it

The tools described above, and their use, fall in the personal domain; you can get them and use them
on your own machine. Ideally the IT group in an organization ought to provide this disk cleanup capability,
making sure the tool used is compatible with the standard software build. And they may want to
customize the cleanup tool so as to throw in some safeguards related to legal requirements in the
discovery and retention space.

But then, once we’re talking corporate IT, there is even more to be done across users and groups –
duplication and version control are of huge value to an enterprise’s data assets, which may reside – and
be duplicated – on individual users’ disks and in their emails as well as in enterprise Intranet systems like
SharePoint and others. There are solutions in that space too, but they tend to be applied to formal data
collections and not to the files of the folks in the trenches…

What’s still missing

As computers get smarter, we may yet see them play a more active role in this process. I can envision
a day when the cleanup program might not just display, but also suggest to you what you may want to
delete, based perhaps on its learning your past archiving, deletion, and access behavior. Or, as I wrote
before, it could allow us to say “Find all presentations related to X that are over 3 years old unless they
have been forwarded by Y to Z in the last 6 months”. Or even offer to “Sort by usefulness”. That would
make the computer a true replacement for the secretaries of old, those whose job it was to keep the boss
together!

Even sooner, a specific area where we could use some progress is email: the cleanup tools I’ve seen all
look at my couple of Gigabytes of email storage as two monolithic PST files. There’s a huge amount of
duplication in there, both between folders and within email threads (There was an experimental tool
called Outlook Thread Compressor a while back, which could remove early messages that are quoted at
the bottom of later replies in the thread. Outlook 2010 has some of this functionality as well. We need
more of this sort of thing). Hear that, software developers?…
Advantages of Computer
Computer has made a very vital impact on society. It has changed the way of life.
The use of computer technology has affected every field of life. People are using
computers to perform different tasks quickly and easily. The use of computers
makes different task easier. It also saves time and effort and reduces the overall
cost to complete a particular task.

Many organizations are using computers for keeping the records of their
customers. Banks are using computers for maintaining accounts and managing
financial transactions. The banks are also providing the facility of online banking.
The customers can check their account balance from using the internet. They can
also make financial transaction online. The transactions are handled easily and
quickly with computerized systems.

See Also: Right technology for kids at every age

People are using computers for paying their bills, managing their home budgets
or simply having some break and watching a movie, listening to songs or playing
computer games. Online services like skype or social media websites are used
for communication and information sharing purposes.

Computer can be used as a great educational tool. Students can have access to
all sort of information on the internet. Some great websites like Wikipedia, Khan’s
Academy, Code Academy, Byte-Notes provides free resources for students &
professionals.

Moreover, the computer is being used in every field of life such as medical,
business, industry, airline and weather forecasting.

See Also: Uses of Computers in various fields

Disadvantages of computer
The use of computer has also created some problems in society which are as
follows.
Unemployment
Different tasks are performed automatically by using computers. It reduces the
need of people and increases unemployment in society.

Wastage of time and energy

Many people use computers without positive purpose. They play games and chat
for a long period of time. It causes wastage of time and energy. Young generation
is now spending more time on the social media websites like Facebook, Twitter
etc or texting their friends all night through smartphones which is bad for both
studies and their health. And it also has adverse effects on the social life.

Data Security
The data stored on a computer can be accessed by unauthorized persons through
networks. It has created serious problems for the data security.

Computer Crimes
People use the computer for negative activities. They hack the credit card
numbers of the people and misuse them or they can steal important data from
big organizations.

Privacy violation
The computers are used to store personal data of the people. The privacy of a
person can be violated if the personal and confidential records are not protected
properly.

Health risks
The improper and prolonged use of computer can results in injuries or disorders
of hands, wrists, elbows, eyes, necks and back. The users can avoid health risks
by using the computer in proper position. They must also take regular breaks
while using the computer for longer period of time. It is recommended to take a
couple of minutes break after 30 minutes of computer usage.
Impact on Environment
The computer manufacturing processes and computer waste are polluting the
environment. The wasted parts of computer can release dangerous toxic
materials. Green computer is a method to reduce the electricity consumed and
environmental waste generated when using a computer. It includes recycling and
regulating manufacturing processes. The used computers must be donated or
disposed off properly.