How To Clear Up your Disk on Windows Xp and Vista

To Clean up your Disk it is actually very simple
There are only a few place where the junk gather

1. Take a Look at C:\

• You should only see the following 3 folders

1. Documents and Settings
2. Program Files
3. WINDOWS

The rest is either
Driver files loaded by OEM
Lazy users who refuse to save it to their home directory respectively
Programs which do not install by default to Program Files Directory (and the installer did not bother to redirect the program there he/she just keep clicking NEXT NEXT NEXT FINISH)

They are all deletable except for the Programs which is better to reinstall via Control Panel into the correct Program Files directory to keep it neat

For Windows Xp you can clear up on the following folders
You may encounter file in use because the operating system is currently using the caches so it is locked
If you encounter this you can just skip that particular file

• C:\WINDOWS\Temp

I need to elaborate on Prefetch
Prefetch is a place where the system cache certain programs so it can run faster
The official stand is that it is a self managing folder where rarely used program will get cleaned up automatically however you can still clear it up once it a while
After you clear up the system will need to prefetch again however there is no harm or any sort done
Also you will notice the system boots faster immediately after you clear Prefetch because Prefetch is loaded on boot so when it is cleared up it boots faster

• C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch

Next Open (Delete everything inside)

• C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temp

At the end of it there is already a tool to clean up your disk
It is called Disk Cleanup
It clears all the above mention folders except Prefetch.

The following is a disk cleanup script from mydigitallife for Windows Vista

@echo off

cls

TITLE Windows Vista System Junk Cleaner v1.0

echo.

echo Windows Vista System Junk Cleaner

echo Version 1.1

echo.

echo (C) 2007 My Digital Life (www.mydigitallife.info)

echo.

echo This batch script is provided as is without warranty.

pause

echo.

echo.

echo Start cleaning and deleting Vista system junk?

echo (Press Ctrl-C and answer Y to terminate)

pause

cls

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.tmp

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*._mp

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.log

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.gid

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.chk

del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.old

del /f /s /q "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\cookies\*.*"

del /f /s /q "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.*"

del /f /s /q "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"

del /f /s /q "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\*.*"

del /f /s /q %windir%\*.bak

del /f /s /q %windir%\prefetch\*.*

del /f /s /q %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Download\*.*

rd /s /q "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp\" & md "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp\"

rd /s /q %windir%\Temp & md %windir%\Temp

cls

echo.

echo Windows Vista System Junk Cleaner

echo Version 1.1

echo.

echo (C) 2007 My Digital Life (www.mydigitallife.info)

echo.

echo This batch script is provided as is without warranty.

echo.

echo.

echo Vista system junk cleaning and deleting completed.

echo.

echo Press any key to exit.

pause

Just copy the script onto notepad, save as diskcleanup.bat.

Run with admin permission.

As you can see the script is completely clean.