Now there's a subject that ranks on the excitement scale just below cleaning gutters and just above watching paint dry. But we all know that not doing system maintenance can result in some real excitement—of the type none of us wish to experience.
Two important tasks that need to be done regularly are disk cleanup and disk defragmentation. Disk cleanup rids your computer of the miscellaneous detritus that accumulates—temporary files of all sorts and old setup files. Disk defragmentation is needed less frequently, but is still required because files tend to get increasingly chopped up over time. Both problems slow your system and both are easy to solve. What's annoying about performing system maintenance tasks is that you can't do anything else with your computer while the hard disks are being cleaned up or defragmented. People put off system maintenance because they have work to do, and are bored by staring at a screen while these kinds of tasks are carried out. Fortunately, with Windows XP you can automate these operations. Just set them up once and forget about them.
Two important tasks that need to be done regularly are disk cleanup and disk defragmentation. Disk cleanup rids your computer of the miscellaneous detritus that accumulates—temporary files of all sorts and old setup files. Disk defragmentation is needed less frequently, but is still required because files tend to get increasingly chopped up over time. Both problems slow your system and both are easy to solve. What's annoying about performing system maintenance tasks is that you can't do anything else with your computer while the hard disks are being cleaned up or defragmented. People put off system maintenance because they have work to do, and are bored by staring at a screen while these kinds of tasks are carried out. Fortunately, with Windows XP you can automate these operations. Just set them up once and forget about them.
Disk Cleanup
The Disk Cleanup tool is found by clicking Start, pointing to All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, and then clicking Disk Cleanup. You can, of course, just run the tool by clicking it and following the prompts. After you've done that a few times though, I think you'll find the thrill is gone. Here's how to automate the whole process to run while you're away from your computer:
1.Click Run from the Start Menu.
2.In the Open box, type cleanmgr /sageset:1
3.Click OK.
Disk Cleanup opens with a list of the possible files to be deleted. Select a file type to display a description. Check the boxes for the files you want removed, and click OK.
Next, you can schedule Disk Cleanup to run when you want it to.
1.Click Control Panel, then click System and Maintenance, and then click Scheduled Tasks.
2.Double–click Add Scheduled Task to start the Scheduled Task Wizard. In the list of applications you want Windows to run, click Disk Cleanup, and then click Next.
3.Select a frequency for the task—weekly is good—and click Next.
4.Select a day of the week and time for the task to run.
5.Enter the name and password of a user. The program will be run as if that user started it. Check the box to open Advanced Settings when you're done.
6.In the Run box, add the following to the end of the path: /sagerun: 1 and then click OK.
Task Scheduler will automatically run Disk Cleanup with the settings you selected at the time you selected. (Remember to leave your computer on!)
Task Scheduler will automatically run Disk Cleanup with the settings you selected at the time you selected. (Remember to leave your computer on!)
Note:- You can customize Disk Cleanup to delete different files at different intervals by specifying more than one sageset. Just change the number to sageset: 2 or sageset: 3 (in fact, any number from 0 to 65535). Each sageset can have different files selected. Then you can set up a separate scheduled task to execute each set by specifying sagerun: 2 and sagerun: 3 and so forth.
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