The Disk Cleanup utility is a maintenance utility included in Microsoft Windows and is designed to free up disk space on a computer’s hard drive. The utility searches and analyses the hard drive for files that are no longer needed and then removes them. Disk cleanup has a number of categories that can be selected for clean-up.
Recommended Frequency – every 3 months
Time to run – 30mins – 2 Hours
Windows XP
1. Go to the start button and select My Computer
2. Select the hard drive you want to clean, right click and select properties (Most cases drive C)
3. The new window should open in the general tab and there should be a Disk Clean-up button
4. The program will now scan your computer for files to delete this can take anything from a couple of minutes to 30 minutes in severe cases (The norm is about 5 minutes).
5. After the scan is finished you will be presented with the following screen. Ensure you tick all the boxes. Note: If you use hibernation do not tick the hibernation box. Then press OK.
6. This process can take as little as 5 minutes and as long as 90 minutes. It depends on the amount of data to remove as well as the speed of the computer.
