Clean up your desktop and temp files from time to time. Frequently delete programs, documents and other stuff that you don’t need. “A lot of people will load stuff on their computer and never bother to delete it,†says Torrence Davis, editor-in-chief of thebitbag.com and a tech support manager at the Harvard Law School. “It’s like having a house full of garbage and never taking it out. ” Before computer owners had to dig in directories and delete temporary internet files, different cookies, and temp files created when you installed or ran something. It was all done manually. Now, Windows 7 has gotten better about it. You can go into control panels and tell it to clean up your temporary files.
- In Windows 7, go to control panel, then admin tools, and press the free up disk space button. It will scan to find out where it can delete files and then show you how much space you’ll save. Then it will give you the option to delete files or not. “The thing to keep in mind is that it will only clear temporary files in places that windows knows about,†says Cargill. Some applications store their temporary files in the directory that the application runs in.†In those cases, you’ll just need to know that about the application and clean it up yourself manually.