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Disk clean upNo matter what you do with your computer, as long as the machine is turned on you are chewing up byte after byte of disk space. Almost every application you launch creates temporary files that exist long after you have closed the application. Every Web site you visit has text and images downloaded to temporary files. When you play a CD or DVD, more temporary files are involved.As time goes by these temporary files eat up more and more of your disk space, sometimes completely filling your drive! Studies in 2005 showed that a typical PC that had been used for only 3 weeks for Web access alone built up over 250MB of temporary files! Cleaning out these temporary files regularly helps your system run more efficiently and restores valuable disk space. Unfortunately, Windows is not very good at recognizing what is a temporary file and deleting it when it's not needed, so often third-party utilities are used. A good question to ask is what types of temporary files are often found on disk drives. These files break down into three major categories: system files, Internet files, and application files. System files are created by the operating system during the course of its normal tasks. Whenever Windows starts, it begins by allocating a big chunk of disk to a "swap" or "paging" file. This file is used as an extension of physical RAM and contents of the file are moved (or swapped) in and out from RAM as needed. The more applications you run, typically the more swapping goes on. With each action you launch, Windows often uses more temporary files. You want to print something? It goes to a temporary file first. You install new software and a bunch of files are copied to temporary directories. You edit a document or work on a graphic, and copies of the file (and one or more pointers to that file) are created. These files all add up: a typical two hour session on a computer can result in hundreds of temporary files being created, many of which are never deleted by Windows! Add to that the system restore file (not created if you turn off this feature) which is set by default to about 12% of your total disk space! That means if you have a 200GB file, 24GB are used by the system restore file! Internet files are created by Web browsers and other Internet utilities like FTP. Whenever you visit a Web site, almost everything on that page (text, graphics, scripts) are all downloaded to your computer prior to being displayed in your Web browser. Visit a dozen sites, bouncing from link to line, and you've got a saved copy of each page on your system, regardless of how long you stayed on that page! And the Web browser software does not automatically delete those files just in case you visit the same Web site again, allowing it to read that content from its hard disk instead of downloading it again. With a typical Web page occupying 8K of disk space, you can easily see how this adds up to hundreds of megabytes with typical Web usage! Application files are the temporary files your applications created when they are used. When you launch Word, for example, it creates temporary copies of every file you open (as well as some extras!). If you open a 1GB document there's a 1GB duplicate file made, whether you know it or not. If Word terminates abruptly, those temporary files don't get deleted automatically, either. Even if you close Word down properly, there's a backup copy of the file created anyway. Launch a paint program and there's temporary files. The same with music and DVD players. Many applications create log files as they run, providing a history of what has been done when you use the software. Log files may not be big, but hundreds of them add up to temporary files all over the place! The problem gets even worse if you are a software developer and use compilers or other tools: these can create hundreds of temporary files, many of which never get deleted. Cleaning up temporary files is an important step in system maintenance. Here's a list of the types of temporary files you need to look for and remove:
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