Wired In
Tool kits, cleanup help reinvigorate old PC
By Ed Baig
USA Today
Many of us are still not ready to put our aging workhorses out to pasture, no matter how lethargic the machines may be acting. The economy is scary, and we don't have gobs of excess cash. And for better or worse, any home computer of a relatively recent vintage can handle all the software on the market.
But then there are those frustrating meltdowns.
Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to help revitalize rather than retire an older machine. What follows is a basic recipe for providing TLC to an aging PC:
• Delete. For starters, take an honest look at your system. If it's anything like mine, there's one, two, maybe even a dozen or more programs you no longer use. Get rid of them; they won't be missed. The same holds for individual files and e-mails; it may not seem like much, but those bits and bytes grow like weeds.
"Temp'' files, temporary bits of code buried inside your hard drive, also multiply. As their name implies, temp files are supposed to help you out in the short term and then go "poof." But it doesn't always work out that way.
Go into your hard-drive directory (typically C:\), find the "temp'' folder and delete the files. Then dig deeper inside the Windows directory, and look for the subdirectory also marked temp. I found 64.5 megabytes residing in that folder, making up more than a third of the contents of my Windows directory.
A shortcut for finding temp files is to search for all the files with the .tmp suffix; you can safely remove virtually all, with the possible exception of files with long strings of numbers or letters (chances are these won't save you any space anyhow.) If you have any doubts, err on the safe side.
You'll also notice a folder called "Temporary Internet Files'' containing cookies, picture files, Java apps, HTML and text documents. These files are stored into a "cache,'' and the idea is that by keeping them around, sites will load faster should you visit again. But the files hog plenty of disk space, and you can do without many of them.
Your browser may periodically clear out the oldest files from the cache. If not, you can remove them manually.
I ran a program called Norton CleanSweep ($29.95) from Symantec, which searches the Internet cache, temp folders and recycle bin for files that can be exorcised. When Norton finished, it freed up 1.27 gigabytes on my hard drive.
• Repair. The Windows operating system provides a variety of diagnostic and maintenance tools (found in System Tools under Accessories), including the ability to scan your hard drives for structural errors. But while you can rely on them, I often recommend people lean on a solid standalone "utilities'' suite that can automate the various tasks.
Norton SystemWorks, $60, from Symantec includes Norton Utilities and AntiVirus, plus CleanSweep. It's probably the best known of the software toolkits, and it's the suite installed on my Windows Me computer. (The McAfee division of Network Associates and Ontrack Data International also serve up a full complement of useful utilities.)
When I first installed the 2001 version of SystemWorks, I clicked on the "One-Button Checkup'' to have Norton scrutinize my system for potential problems. Sure enough, the program uncovered 411 errors. I haven't experienced that many mistakes on an exam since high school.
Most errors concerned the Windows "registry,'' the operating system's repository for crucial hardware, software and setup configuration settings. Mucking around the registry manually is a risky affair, best left only to experienced Windows mavens. But with a mouse click, Norton was able to repair the baffling errors; I'll never even know what they were.
• Defragment. Next I turned to another bundled utility, Norton Speed Disk, and did the "defrag.'' This is not some '60s dance but rather reflects what happens to the computer's hard drive over time.
When you save your work, files are stored into small bits of data known as clusters. As you create, modify or eliminate files, these clusters are placed wherever there is space on the disk — even if there's not enough space for the entire file in that spot. Files eventually become fragmented, their clusters spread out all over the disk, and that bogs things down. Norton Speed Disk reunites the wayward clusters and also arranges the files in such a manner that the ones you use most often are more readily accessible.
A note of warning: Defragging a hard drive is like watching continental drift. You could stare at the color-coded map charting your progress, or better yet have a nice meal, take in a movie and get some much-needed shut-eye. (Windows includes its own, even more glacial, defrag tool.)
Ed Baig is personal technology columnist for USA Today.
