my drive is ful of crap.how does a newbie clean this mess (free)?

Answer 1

Download crap cleaner now called ccleaner, its free, magic at cleaning up. I hope that helps.

Answer 2

BEST ADVICE

"Wanna know how to keep your computer free from viruses, pop-ups, spyware, and other junk? Here’s how to do it without installing a single piece of software:

Tell all the males in your house to quit surfing for porn

Buy CDs and rip the tracks from there

Get a Netflix or Blockbuster account instead of using BitTorrent

Instead of looking for software cracks / serials, look for coupons

Stop operating in Administrator mode

Adhering to these five points (and forcing your family or roommates to do the same) should be enough to cut your risk by 90%, I’m guessing. You could do more to protect yourself, though, if you feel the need to download something:

Download drivers through official (or sanctioned) sources

Avoid unnecessary browser toolbars, plugins, or enhancements - and if you’re not sure if a toolbar is TRULY necessary, don’t install it

Read through every bit of a software installer process to ensure you’re not adding something that you don’t need and/or want - and if you’re not a geek, don’t install ANYTHING without first asking permission (from your Administrator)

Think twice before clicking on links sent to you by email or IM - especially if they prompt you to log in somewhere or download something else

Surf through OpenDNS servers for automatic Web site typo correction as well as an extra layer of phishing filters

That’s probably worth another 10% as far as protection from spyware / viruses are concerned. If you wanna be super-duper protected, surf the Web with Firefox or move to OS X (sorry, gang) and run Windows apps through Parallels."

Chris Pirillo

Answer 3

the following assumes you are using windows xp

Go to "Start", "All Programs", "Accessories", "System Tools", and then select "Disk Cleanup". Under the "Disk Cleanup" tab check all the boxes except; "Compress old files" and "Catalog files for the Content Indexer", then select "OK" and "Yes" to perform these actions.

You could also remove unused programs (control panel > add/remove). Its pretty much ok to remove anything you're familiar with and are confident you wont need to use in future. Wise to stay clear of anything you're not _completely_ sure about.

ccleaner is an excellent application thats free, and assisst with system cleanup:
http://www.ccleaner.com/download/builds

next, run a spyware checker. if you dont already have one, you might like to try~
http://www.spywareterminator.com/ or
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

Once you've done this, you could through your hard drive and remove any large files you no longer need. You could also have a look through your email client (if you use one) and sort your old emails by size. once youve done this, delete any with large attachments which you no longer need.

Now defrag your hard disk. Start/programs/accessories/disk defragmenter

with that done you may want to check your registry for redundancies and errors. If you dont already have a registry cleaner you might like to try~

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm or
http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm

It may be worth checking each hard drive with 'scandisk'. there are other issues such as lost clusters and bad sectors that the defragmentation utility cannot touch. It's a good idea to run XP's built in error checking utility on your drives every 2-3 months. This utility will scan your disks for errors and optionally attempt to correct them.

Open 'My Computer' from the desktop. 'Right-click' on your main hard drive, (usually 'C:'). Select 'properties' then 'tools' and under 'error checking' select 'check now…'. Check both 'Automatically fix file system errors' and 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors'. Restart your machine. 'Scandisk' will run during startup and can take a while depending on the size of your drive.

thats about it.

Answer 4

start>control panel> internet options> delete> delete all option tick box for add ons and yes, this will delete alot of temp file and cookies, defrag your hard drive, you can even delete files or programs if you know what they are and don't use anymore, using add / remove programs in control panel. It doesn't cost to do simple house keeping and keep you computer running at its best, just a little time. If you cant find defrag goto search and look for "disk defragmenter" then create a short cut for your desktop. You will use it several times or should at least twice a month.

Answer 5

Go to My Computer
Right Click C Drive
Left Click Properties
Click on Disk Cleanup

Answer 6

Clearly the answer is prevention: don't download crap! Only you can control the pollution so you should monitor what you install and if you don't find it useful or entertaining you should remove it.

If the problem is beyond control then you have learned a valuable lesson and it might be best to re-install the OS and your applications after backing up your important documents.

Answer 7

Go to control panel, click on add and remove programs, and remove crap from here, you should also clean up temporary internet files, and history crap.