House Clean Your Computer

I only wish that cleaning my house was as simple & easy as this freeware utility created by PC Magazine has proven to be for my personal computer. Considering the amount of software I download & test on a continual basis it doesn't take long for the junk files to build up. Examples of junk files are Internet Explorer Cache files, temporary (tmp) files, temporary installation files, etc. These files tend to get left on the computer & eventually eat up valuable space. I personally use Hard Drive Valet on six computer systems utilizing three different operating systems: Windows 95, Windows 98 (Second Edition), & Windows ME.

Hard Drive Valet offers several options when disposing of the junk files on an user's computer. An user can choose to have the junk files sent to the recycle bin, moved to a holding folder, or permanently deleted. Choose an order in which to remove the junk files by right-clicking on an item in the default list then choosing one of the options: Move Item Higher or Move Item Lower. Uncertain about what type of junk files are being removed? Right-click on an item from the list & choose Display Properties. A pop-up text will display the appropriate file types.

Concerned about which junk file types are being removed after Hard Drive Valet scans your computer's hard disk? Simply leave the Test Mode box checked & Hard Drive Valet will scan your hard disk & display a report on the types of junk files that it would have removed. After you are confident of the types of junk files that are being removed simply uncheck the Test Mode box to allow Hard Drive Valet to clean the junk file types from your computer. Please note that depending on your situation there may be junk files you may want to actually keep. For example you may have older system files that have a .bak extension that you may find useful. Under these circumstances you may want to uncheck the Backup Files box.

Assuming that you use this utility about once a week, you will probably find it only removes a few KBs of junk files at a time. However, if you've never used a utility like this one before or have neglected your weekly 'house cleaning' you might be surprised at how a few KBs can add up over time. The most I've removed from my computer was over 250 MB!

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