Introduction notes from FLST.

Last week while working on a computer that had been donated for the Garage Sale I discovered that while the computer had a 20 Gig hard drive, it had 10Gig. of garbage files. These files were old temporary internet files, old backup files, cookies, etc., it took quite a while to get rid of them all. If you have not cleaned up your hard drive in awhile you can do it a few ways.

First, as you quit browsing the internet for the day , while using Internet Explorer IE7, click on Tools>Delete Browsing History, you then can delete the individual items or use the Delete All button .You can then check weather or not you want to delete files stored by add-ons.

Second, you can run Disk Cleanup manually: Click START>PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>SYSTEM TOOLS>DISK CLEANUP. When it completes it will ask if it is OK to remove the files. Click OK.

Third, you can automate doing disk cleanup with you task scheduler. Follow the instructions below.

How To Schedule Disk Cleanup To Run Automatically in Windows XP

By Eric Vaughan
October 20, 2003

This guide will show you how to make Disk Cleanup a Scheduled Task in Windows XP.

First we have to establish the parameters you want Disk Cleanup to use:

Go to Start > Run > type cleanmgr /sageset:50 . Ensure there is a space between cleanmgr and / > click OK

In the resulting screen, choose your options by checking the boxes. I choose all but the bottom two.

Click OK

Now that we have established what we want Disk Cleanup to do, we need to schedule it to run:

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks > Add Scheduled Task > the Scheduled Task Wizard will appear, click Next.

Scroll down until you see Disk Cleanup, click on it once to highlight it and click Next

Pick a name for the task, Disk Cleanup is fine. Pick how often you want the task to run. I recommend Daily. Click Next

Choose a time. Make sure the time doesn't conflict with any other tasks. Click Next.

Enter the user name and password. Click Next.

Verify your settings are correct.

Check the box next to Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish.

Click Finish

In the resulting screen you should only have to type /sagerun:50. Ensure there is a space between .exe and /.

Click Apply.

Enter your password. Click OK to close out the 2 screens.

Now let's verify we've done this correctly.

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks and make sure your task is there. Double click on it to make any changes.

That's it!