These days, a relatively clean and uncomplicated Windows 10 or 11 system disk might be home to more than 250,000 files and 90,000 folders. A more complex, application-heavy system disk might contain between half a million and a million files. My Windows 11 production PC has over 970K files and 275K folders, for example. That’s a lot of stuff!
Indeed, all those files need not necessarily be kept around. That’s why it’s a good idea to practice regular disk hygiene. This is exactly what is explained and explored here, with plenty of examples and screen shots to illustrate the cleanup process. Best of all, the tools that help you tidy up won’t cost you a dime.
Step 1: Run built-in Windows disk cleanup tools
From time immemorial, Windows has included a utility for cleaning up disk space — namely, Disk Cleanup, also known as cleanmgr.exe. In Windows 10, users gained a second method to clean up disk space: the “Free up space now” option is part of its Settings-based “Storage Sense” facility aimed at optimizing storage. In Windows 11, this shows up as “Cleanup recommendations.”
There has been speculation that Disk Cleanup might disappear as Settings takes over Windows management and controls. Even so, the Disk Cleanup utility remains ready, willing, and able to work in Windows 11 22H2 as I write this story. Either the Settings or Disk Cleanup approach provides a great way to excise extraneous and unneeded Windows files (for Windows 10 and 11 versions across the board).
To launch Disk Cleanup, type disk clean or cleanmgr.exe into the Start menu search box. The Disk Cleanup desktop app should appear at the top of those search results. If you can, select Run as administrator from the resulting options menu. Why? Only then does it offer to clean up redundant or outdated OS files (such as old OS files after an upgrade, or old updates) as well as other Windows leftovers.
After Disk Cleanup scans your system, Figure 1 shows a reasonable facsimile of what you’ll see in Windows 11.
Ed Tittel / IDG
Figure 1: When you run Disk Cleanup as an administrator, you can remove “Previous windows installation(s)” and other OS files.
Scroll through the checkbox items in the pane labeled “Files to delete” and pick stuff you’d like to lose. The numbers in the right column indicate how much disk space each item occupies. Don’t delete old OS versions or updates if you think you might want to roll back to an earlier version. Note also that the Downloads item represents the contents of your personal Downloads folder, so don’t delete it unless you’re sure you don’t need anything it holds.
Figure 1 includes a previous Windows 11 installation, for a total recovery of 12.7GB. That’s a sizable chunk of disk space.
In Windows 10, the Settings-based cleanup option is available through Settings > System > Storage > Configure Storage Sense or run it now > Free up space now. On the “Free up space now” pane,…
2023-09-15 06:24:06
Source from www.computerworld.com rnrn