Using Windows Disk Cleanup: Delete Unnecessary Files To Speed Up Performance

As you install more and more programs and software applications on Windows, the active operating system partition gets filled up with temporary files, unused DLL’s and files that are no longer required by your system. These files may take up a good amount of space and more importantly – they may even slow down your computer.

If you want to delete unnecessary system files in Windows to free up disk space and help your computer run faster than before, it’s advised to run Windows disk clean up utility once every two or three weeks.

Windows disk clean up wizard cleans up your computer from temporary files, temporary internet files, deletes everything from the recycle bin and removes a lot of system files that are no longer required by your system.

Here are the steps to perform disk clean up in Windows7, they are similar in case you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista.

1. Open “My Computer”, right click the active Windows partition and choose “Properties”

2. The “Properties” window will show you a pie chart of the amount of space used in the C drive and the remaining amount of space available. To start Disk clean up in Windows7, hit the “Disk Cleanup” button.

3. This will start a wizard and Windows will detect how much amount of space can be freed up by performing disk cleanup. After the analysis is over, you will be shown all the options and the file types that will be deleted on performing the Disk clean up action.

Example: I started the disk clean up wizard and here are the details:

• Downloaded program files – 0 bytes.
• Temporary internet files – 32 MB
• Offline webpages -  62KB
• Office set up files – 0KB.
• Recycle bin – 0 KB ( This is because I always permanently delete files)
• Set up log files – 24.7 KB
• Temporary files – 351 MB ( Now that was quite huge !)
• Thumbnails – 31 MB
• Per user queued Windows error report – 32 KB
• System queued Windows error report -  22KB

I was surprised to see that a large amount of my hard drive space was consumed by the temporary internet files, downloads and other system files that were no longer required by Windows.

4. Next, hit the “OK” button and Windows will start the disk clean up wizard. All the above files will be deleted from your computer.

When the disk clean up procedure is over,your system performance will be much smoother and faster than before. Do you use Windows disk clean up to delete temporary system files? Share your ideas in the comments section.

Related: Low Disk Space? Move Installed Programs to another drive without reinstallation.