Spring Cleaning Your PC by Jason Levine

After all of that anti-spyware/Trojan/virus checking, I figured you'd be ready for an easy step, so this one is simple. During various actions (installs, uninstalls, document opening, etc), your computer creates temporary files. Sometimes these files aren't removed after the system is finished with them. They remain on the system and can needlessly hog disk space. Luckily everything you need to remove them is right in Windows.

First you'll need to go to Windows' temporary files directories. Make sure you close down all applications (to ensure that temporary files you delete won't be in use) and open up c:\temp in Explorer. (If Windows is not installed on the C drive, replace C:\ with the appropriate drive letter.) Select and delete all of the files and folders in this directory. Next, if you're using Win95/98/ME, go to C:\Windows\Temp. If you're using Win2K/XP, go to c:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR USERNAME>\Local Settings\Temp. Change the view to details and sort by Modified date. Now delete all the files and folders that weren't created today. (Some of the ones that were created today might still be in use.)

Now, you'll need to open up Windows' Find utility. To do this, go to Start->Find->Files and Folders (in Windows 2000/XP it will be Start->Search->Files and Folders). Search for "*.tmp" (no quotes) and delete any files or folders that come up. Next, search for "~*.*" (again, no quotes), and delete any files or folders that get found.

Now it's time to clean your browser's cache. Open up an instance of Internet Explorer. (Netscape users can skip down to the Netscape instructions below.) Select Tools->Internet Options and then click on "Delete Files." Select the "Delete all offline content" checkbox and click "OK." If you're using Netscape, click on Edit->Preferences. Now double-click on Advanced and click on Cache. Finally, click on the "Clear Disk Cache" and "Clear Memory Cache" buttons.

If you're using Windows XP, there's one more type of temporary file to delete: Fastboot files. XP will cache DLLs and system files in order to speed up boot time. Removing these can speed up the access time for commonly used applications and DLLs. To delete these FastBoot files, open up the Windows\PreFetch folder (the exact "Windows" folder name may vary based on your install) and delete everything inside it. Reboot and you're done cleaning out temporary files.