Cleaning Computer Files

As everyone should know by now, document management is key to maintaining an efficient computer system. To keep your system running at its smoothest, you need to create, name and store your documents properly. Remember not to overlook: the regular deletion of unneeded files. You don't need; or want; to keep every document you've ever created, so why live with the unnecessary clutter? It only makes the system run more slowly and all your files harder to find.

Cleaning up your system means cleaning out the files that you no longer need, be they old word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations or electronic mail messages. In addition to deleting obsolete files from crowded network and workstation hard disks, you should also delete any old business files residing on your laptop and home computer. To follow are some suggestions to help get your document "spring cleaning" underway.

Finding obsolete files
You know you've got documents you haven't seen in many months; even years. How can you find what and where they are? I would suggest that you peruse the file before deleting it.

You can open the application and look at each file individually, but this would be slow. A more efficient option is to use your computer’s built-in browsing function, such as the Microsoft “search companion” feature. For a concentrated cleanup of electronic files, search by date. The search screen will appear with the documents within the search criteria.

You may choose to concentrate on two kinds of files: old files and large files. If a file has not been used for a couple of years, it's a good candidate for deletion. Large files, because of the amount of hard drive space they consume (graphics documents such as presentations are prime examples), are also good candidates; provided, of course, the documents are no longer needed.

Checking Individual C: Drives
Even if most documents are normally saved to a network, there may be documents that users have (intentionally or inadvertently) saved to their C: drives so for a complete clean up, check those individual drives as well.

Saving files to another Directory
All your directories and files can be placed in a temporary file to be removed at a later date. I would suggest that rather than delete unwanted files create an “archive” CD. Then delete the file from your computer. This will allow you to recover files that may be needed at a later date or that were deleted in error.

Deleting Files
Some directories contain system files that should not be deleted. Be careful to delete only files that you recognize as files you created. (Usually you can tell by the extension: .DOC for Word files, .XLS for Excel files, etc.) To delete a file, simply select the file name and press your Delete key. To select a group of files, click on the first file, then Shift-click on the last file of the group. For several individual files, use Ctrl-click to select or deselect the individual files.