Disk Cleanup for (C:)...?

Question

I'd like to learn a little more about the disk cleanup for drive C. On the "General" tab of Local Disk (C:) Properties, I have two available boxes to check at the very bottom.

"Compress drive to save disk space"
and
"Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching"

Should I have them checked on or off?

Also, when I hit "Disk Cleanup" I have 7 more options to check on or off.

"Downloaded Program Files"
"Temporary Internet Files"
"Recycle Bin"
"Temporary Files"
"WebClient/Publisher Temporary Files"
"Compress Old Files"
"Catalog files for the Content Indexer"

Which of these should I have checked on/off when I run Disk Cleanup? Also, how often should I run Disk Cleanup? Thanks.

Answer 1

Should I have them checked on or off?Off !
Check all 7

Answer 2

on the general tab DONT check indexing services this slows the computer down. if your hard drive is running low on space then it would be a good idea to compress the drive.

in disk cleanup look at the sizes stated next to the tabs. you don't need to check the option if it says 0.00KB. but if you do decide to check a box click details to see what you are deleting. 9 times out of 10 you can safely delete the above options. but be careful with the recycle bin you might have accidentally put an important file in here and you don't want to delete it. so once again ALWAYS check the details tab

Answer 3

On the disk cleanup, check every box and run about once a week along with your Disk Defragmenter, I personially had a bad experence with compression utilities, so I dont use them, it was a windows 98 machine with like 200mb or less fee on my HDD, it rendered the computer un-bootable and had to re-format. The best is if you are running out of hard disk space, just buy a new 200GB or more drive and make that the master/slave which ever would be best, the faster should be master so you will boot up faster. You can click the indexing button, but not required. If you want a really indepth explanation checkout the books for
CompTIA A+ Certification, it explains everything for the test, but you can learn everything about new computer hardware and Windows Operating Systems.

Answer 4

Compress the drive only if you need the space because sometimes files get lost or become fragmented.

Allow indexing..it takes a few minutes to index all the files but it is a time saver when you defragment a drive and search for certain files.

Check all the options..all this does is clean up unused files or files that are corrupted..shouldn't hurt your system any at all.

Run it about once a week to remove temporary internet files and free up disk space. Also you could download a free windows washer trial..it works well and doesn't hurt any of our computers plus it is easy to use.

Answer 5

Do the second process, the regular "Disk Cleanup". I check them all and have never been sorry. My thought is that these files have a permanent home somewhere else on the computer and are no longer needed.

If you encounter problems, you can always use System Restore to get you back to where you were before you did the Disk Cleanup.

Answer 6

This all depends on how big "Size in Gigabyte' your hard drive "C" is. Much of these options came into play and were important on early computers with small hard drives. Today some of it is still important to make your computer run faster.
Personally I would not compress files to save space, it can cause slowdown decoding these files when you access them. I would Defragment the disc once every few months, Check all the options in the list of 7 or more. I have around 300 Gb and done none of this stuff, my choice though. With smaller drives,less storage, I defragged about 3 times a year. Defragging is reorganizing files so they are more linked together and access is faster, keep in mind when you do this, it is possible to crash the drive, so be prepared and have backups of all your data.

Answer 7

I would check Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin, WebClient/Publisher Temp Files.
HOPE THIS HELPS

Answer 8

check on all of them........
compressing is not so important but indexing service is.
and those 7 options for "disk cleanup" check on cos they r not important and it ll boost up your internet speed also.

Answer 9

it really dont matter which one u check i check all of them and when u check compress drive to save disk space all it means it mashes them up so u have more room and when u click ok on disk cleanup it cleans out all your Junk you dont need nomore on your computer so u have more room

Answer 10

I usually check them all. Because all it is, is a cleanup so it isn't going to wipe the drive clean or anyhting. I usually do it just when my computer is getting slow. Otherwise I don't mess with it.