Official Newsletter of the Tampa Bay Computer Society www.tampa-bay.org

Clean Up Your PC

By Dale Atchison

What kind of housekeeper are you? If you're anything like me, feel free to 'plead the 5th' on the question; there will be no prizes given for living amongst numerous piles of old computer magazines. Or valuable, barely-used computer parts that will one day be worth something again, maybe.

Seriously, keep your house, your shop, your office, and your car as messy as you like, but don't expect your computer to perform at its best unless you occasionally spend some time and effort cleaning up your hard drive. You can do most of what's needed manually, navigating to the various folders where temporary or useless files are stored, and deleting them as needed. I prefer a more elegant, automatic solution.

I've been using EasyCleaner 2.0, a freeware utility from Finland, for nearly three years. On command, it will clean out temporary files, Temporary Internet files, cookies, lists of recently used files, browser history, unnecessary files, broken program shortcuts, and incorrect Registry entries. (While lots of people tell me they aren't really comfortable giving any program access to the Windows Registry, I've cleaned dozens of computers with EasyCleaner, and never had the slightest hiccup afterwards.) Each of these categories is selected individually, meaning you click on Cookies to delete cookies, History to clear the history, the IE Files button to clear Temporary Files, etc. You only delete the files you meant to delete.

You can download EasyCleaner 2.0 from this site. Save it to your Desktop, then double-click it to start the install process. Accept all the defaults; e.g., click on Next ==> Next ==> Install ==> and Finish. Now, move the installation executable file from the desktop to a sub-folder for safekeeping against the possibility of one day having to reload Windows and all of your applications --- I know, not likely, but you just never know.

EasyCleaner will now be available on your Start menu, at the very end of the Programs or All Programs list. (To move it to a more logical location, click on Start ==> Programs or All Programs ==> right-click any item on the menu ==> and select Sort By Name to put the entire menu in alphabetical order, folders first, then individual icons.)

Start EasyCleaner: Start ==> Programs or All Programs ==> EasyCleaner ==> EasyCleaner. There may be an error message the first time you start the program, which won't appear ever again. Ignore it, or click OK if it doesn't go away by itself. (The error message occurs because the program didn't see the video environment it expected on first start; it will adjust itself, and you won't see the error message again.)

The program will run fine as initially installed. However, I prefer tweaking any time I get the opportunity, to save disk space, to do a more thorough job, or just because I can. If you'd like, here are my recommended tweaks:

Click on the Options button. The General, Appearance, Update, and Space Usage tabs are okay as they are, so start by clicking the Unnecessary Files tab. In the Ignore box, clear all four check marks. In the Advanced box, clear the check mark next to Confirm Changes, check the box next to Recurse Subdirectories. In the Delete Method box, choose Permanent Delete. Click on the Shortcuts tab. In the Ignore box, check all boxes except Empty Folders. In the Advanced box, clear both check marks. In the Delete Method box, choose Permanent Delete.Click on the Startup tab. In the Undo and Advanced boxes, clear the checkmarks. In the Delete Method box, choose Permanent Delete. Click on the Registry tab. In the Undo box, put a check mark next to Create Undo File on Delete, and use the down arrow to decrease the number of possible Undo's to 4. In the Advanced box, remove the check mark next to Confirm Changes.Click on the Add/Remove tab. In the Undo box, clear the check mark. In the Advanced box, place a check mark next to List Extra Items, and remove the check mark next to Confirm Changes. Click on the Duplicate Files tab. Place a check mark in every box in the Require and Advanced boxes. In the Delete Method box, choose Recycle Bin.

You should run EasyCleaner 2.0 once a month. Most of the time, you will only be concerned with cleaning up Unnecessary Files and bogus Registry entries. Here's how:

Click on the Unnecessary button. Click on Local Disk C: to highlight it, then place a check mark in each of the boxes to the right; Normal Types is already checked --- check the rest, then click on Find. Go get some coffee, wash the car, mow the lawn --- this takes a while. Notice that the row of buttons beneath the window is grayed out --- none of those choices are available while the drive is being scanned. When the scan is complete, you will be presented with several choices, including Select All and Delete All; choose Delete All. Confirm to delete multiple megabytes of bogus files that are just clogging your PC and slowing it down. The deletion process will take from several seconds to several minutes, depending on how many files it's wiping. There will be from 2 to 8 files that it won't be able to delete, as they are marked as in use by Windows; click OK, then Close. Click on the Registry button, then click on Find. When it finishes looking for bogus entries, and presents you with the same row of choices as in

Unnecessary Files, again choose Delete All. Confirm the choice to clean up the registry, then click on Close, and click Close again to exit the program. (For those who care, what the program does is read the Registry, one key at a time. If the key references a file on the computer, but the file isn't there any longer, the key is deleted.)

Every so often, open EasyCleaner and click on the Update button, then on the Check button. If it finds a newer version on the Web, click on Update in the new window and follow the instructions given. The new installation file will automatically be saved in C:\Program Files\ToniArts\EasyCleaner. Double-click it to install the newer version, then move the install file to C:\Install Files for safekeeping. If a new Blacklist is found, click on Blacklist, close EasyCleaner when prompted, and restart the program to utilize the new blacklist.

I've tried a couple of other freeware cleanup utilities. They were good, they did a creditable job, and they didn't seem to do any damage to my computer. I even distribute them on the free Utility CD I give to all my clients. But, running EasyCleaner afterward found more useless files to delete, and more bogus Registry entries. I trust it, and I've installed it on all of my clients' computers for the past two years and some change.

In addition to using EasyCleaner 2.0, there are a couple of things you can do to keep your hard drive from filling up and slowing down your computer. These are one-time tweaks that will cause the operating system to use the drive a little more efficiently.

1. Right-click the Recycle Bin, select Properties. Windows automatically reserves 10% of the drive for the Recycle Bin; using the left mouse button, grab the slider and drag it down to 2% or 3% --- that's more than enough.

2. Open Control Panel ==> Internet Options. In the Temporary Internet Files (cache) box, decrease the size of the cache to 25 to 50 megabytes.

3. If you're using Windows XP, right-click My Computer, and select

Properties. Click on the System Restore tab. Using the left mouse button, drag the slider to the left until the amount of space reserved for this function is below a gigabyte. Click on OK.

That's about it. Hope these hints help a little.

BTW, Toni Helenius, the author of EasyCleaner 2.0, has also written EasyHTML, a freeware HTML editor, and EasyComm, a freeware program that allows computers on a network to chat with each other. I found them both today while researching the download link to EasyCleaner; I downloaded and installed them both, and they are both just as visually attractive, intuitive, and easy to use as EasyCleaner.