Once a week I run either Disk Clean-up (found in the Systems Tools folder on Windows PCs/Laptops) or the CCleaner application (free to download) to clear down space on the hard drive of my computer. It mainly erases temporary files created by applications throughout the week. I'll also run one of them before I watch the stream of a live football match*.
*Please note that the Premier League legal team would not like it, if I were to list the web addesses of some of these websites that stream live games on this forum. As i understsand it, it's not illegal to use them, but it might be to be seen to be actively promoting them.
I was told by a Systems Programmer that I trust that it is no longer necessary to run Disk Defragmentation on Windows computers/laptops which have Windows XP or later operating systems installed. He explained that there was a change in the methods in which data was stored on the disk, which meant it was no longer necessary to free up large areas of contiguous free space.
Right, does anyone have any other maintenance programs that they would recommend? What about our friends with Apple Mac computers?
Bill
Hello Bill. What a very sensible thing to do re cleaning of temp files on a weekly basis, I don't do that but I think I might now, as a typical week's useage gathers so much clutter. Work wise I can also happily cheat a bit on maintenance as all our laptops are remotely supported, updated, backed up etc makes one a little idle. They actually probably don't run as 'lightly' but my main worry, which is losing data, is soothed. Backing up data I think is something as important as optimising useage. In my non work useage, I am afraid that I learnt that lesson a little late ...!
Hi Bill,
That Systems Programmer was probably right. I check the drives on Windows 7 systems every 6 months. I analyse the disk first before going ahead with a defrag. And every analysis I have undertaken in the last 3 years as not resulted in me doing a full defrag.
Hi Emma & Lynne,
One thing that I forgot to mention was when I had a teenage son who used used to play on-line shoot-em-up video games with friends. With all the download and upload of screens for this, I found I had to run Disk Clean-up after every marathon games session from him. That was really heavy on creating temporary files. So, if you have children, nephews, nieces, or grandchildren visiting and using your computer to play games bear this in mind to run maintenance applications afterwards. Later, when we all had separate laptops and a Wi-Fi connection, we found his usage used to slow down all the others' internet connections. Luckily, he's flown the nest now.
If anyone is interested in how to view streamed football games, please feel free to send me a message.
Bill
Another thing I do occasionally, is to clear down the Downloads folder. That is physically delete items from the folder. This is a folder that's found within the Documents folder on your computer. Every time you download something from the internet, a copy is first placed in this folder. Or if your friends send you cute video clips of people falling into water, or cute animals behaving strangely etc on their e-mails, you'll download them into this folder before you can view them.
I clear down my Downloads folder about once every 6 months, but for the shared computers in the training suite in work, I'll clear them down every month.