I need to delete old files on a computer without deleting something important.?

Question

I bought a used PC and want to delete all old files but am afraid I will delete something that is necessary. Can anyone tell me a good and safe way to "clean up" an old system. It has Windows XP, by the way.

Answer 1

If you have not put any documents on this computer, then you can safely delete everything in My Documents. Those are files. You can uninstall old programs you didn't put on the computer, like games, old ISP's,etc. Click on Start, Settings, Control Panel, and Add/Remove Programs. Don't delete Internet Explorer or any of the Windows updates or any other programs you know you are going to need, like Office or something like that. You can uninstall Works if you have it. There is a better, smaller, free
office suite available from Open Office.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Restart the computer after uninstalling programs.

Run XP's Disk Cleanup. Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and Disk Cleanup. Remove everything it finds.

Download and install Auslogics Disk Defrag, it's much faster and thorough than Windows' defrag. After cleaning out the files, run the Defrag utility.
http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php

Then download Service Pack 2 for XP.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx

This will help keep XP running smooth.

Answer 2

The safest way to remove applications is through the add/remove programs selection:

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs

To remove unwanted data, you should have no worries. Delete files using the Windows Explorer, and don't delete anything from your Windows directory or its subdirectories.

Most vital files will give you a warning if you try to remove them. Windows has gotten fairly good at preventing accidental corruptions.

Best of luck!

Answer 3

and you may uninstall something which you now not use. you would be stunned how lots stuff gets put in and not uninstalled. The stuff is then loaded while the pc is booted. it could not make it way quicker despite if it could shrink down on memory swapping and hence convalescing thruput.

Answer 4

Well, don't delete anything is the WINDOWS directory or any directory that has I386 in it.