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Don't Delete That!!!!
It was the year I finished my A+ training and got my certification. I was doing my practicum in a small computer shop between semesters when a lady brought in a computer. She needed to get Windows 98 working again. She claimed her computer would no longer boot to Windows, that it claimed files were missing or corrupt.
We sat the computer on the work bench, hooked it up, and found to our dismay, that entire portions of Windows 98 had been deleted from the system. We had to completely reinstall Windows 98 to get it to work properly.
When the lady came back, we told her what we had to do, and what we found, then we asked about computer habits in the home. Her response was both hilarious and maddening all at the same time.
Her teenage son regularly downloaded mp3's off the 'net and had filled the harddrive. He needed more space and saw that the c:\windows\system folder was taking up alot of room, so he deleted it!!! Needless to say, when we reinstalled win98, he lost all his music, as the damage had been so severe as to require formatting the drive.
Don't Delete That!!!!
I am here today to let you in on a few secrets of good file and folder management.
SECRET #1:
Do not go into the c:\windows folder unless you are good and sure you know what you are doing in there. If you are unsure of what everything is in this folder, handle your disk maintenance routine using programs provided by Windows itself in start/programs/accessories/system tools, or by third party programs such as WindowWasher or The Cleaner.
If you do know what you're doing in the c:\windows folder, its a good rule of thumb to only touch the cache and temp directories and leave everything else alone.
SECRET #2:
Do not go into the C:\program files\common files folder under any circumstances! This folder contains many of the shared files that various Microsoft programs use, and deleting the contents in this folder can cause your programs to stop working properly, or stop working at all.
SECRET #3:
If there are programs taking up space that you nolonger use and wish to get rid of, don't go into Explorer and delete the folders. Instead, go to start/settings/control panel, and open Add/Remove Programs to uninstall the programs properly. Once the uninstall is complete, if the uninstaller says that certain components could not be removed, THEN you may go to those folders and delete them.
This prevents your computer from still thinking that a program you deleted is on the system. When programs have not been removed properly, often, the only way to remove them is to reinstall them, then uninstall them. Occasionally that will not work as the installation program finds data that says it is still on the computer. Some real hassles can result from improperly removed programs.
SECRET #4:
If you use Windows ME, or Windows 2000 or Windows XP, and if you rely on System Restore to get you out of jams, do NOT delete the system restore folder on c:\. That folder contains all the information needed to roll your computer back to an earlier time when everything was working well.
So what can I delete???
You can delete any folders and files that you have created.
You can delete any folders and files related to a program you uninstalled from your computer in Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
Tips on gaining more space on your harddrive:
Tip 1) Regularly do a search for all *.tmp files on your computer and delete them.
Tip 2) Regularly go into Internet Options and clean out your temporary Internet Files.
Tip 3) Run ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter at least once a month.
Tip 4) Don't keep programs on your system that you never use.
Tip 5) Get a larger harddrive.
If you follow these tips and secrets, you should be able to avoid the story shared at the beginning of this article.
Happy Computing!
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