REMOVE HIDDEN JUNK
8 vital steps to make your computer FASTER CLEANER SAFER
PLUS How to never install junk again
Junk, bloatware, malware, PUPS. Whatever you call it, we can all agree on one thing – it has no place on your computer. But some junk is very cunning, stubbornly refusing all attempts to remove, other examples avoid detection entirely – maybe even get up to a bit of mischief.
And it’s a problem that’s showing no sign of going away anytime soon. We all love free software, but too often this costs you in other ways. If developers aren’t making money from their software, they’ll try to extract it in other ways - often by secretly installing trial versions of their paid-for programs.
Not all junk is quite so malicious. There’s the temporary files left behind by programs after you tripped over your power cable and crashed your PC; the cache built up by your favourite browser; and the duplicate files you’ve amassed over the years.
There are plenty of tools that can help clean up your PC, providing advanced features that can really save you time. We will look at some of these in this feature, but our main focus is on the powerful tools built into Windows that will identify and remove obstinate junk files that even the dedicated cleaners struggle with – and stop it returning.
Although less susceptible to junk, phones and tablets are not immune, but there are some great built-in tools for cleaning up Android and IOS devices – we’ll explain how to use those as well.
Your reward for clearing all this junk? Along with the same feeling you get when recycling a car-load of old tat at the local tip, you’ll free up valuable space on your hard drive and enjoy a faster, cleaner safer computer that won’t be up to any mischief behind your back.
1 Remove unwanted programs
Whether it’s PUPS that were cunningly installed without your say-so or software you no longer use, unwanted programs are likely to make up most of the junk on your PC.
The good news is that, in most cases, you can use the Windows’ uninstaller tool to get rid of them. Go to Settings, Apps (in Windows 7, go to Control Panel, Programs, ‘Uninstall a program’), then select the program you don’t want and click Uninstall.
In Windows 10, you can often speed things up by running multiple uninstall processes simultaneously (sometimes it will ask you to wait for one to finish before starting another). This may produce multiple messages on screen at the same time, which can be confusing.
Never uninstall programs until you know what they are. You’ll see software that you don’t recognise as well entries that look like multiple installations of the same program. On our PC, we found no less than 11 instances of ‘Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable…’ installed (see screenshot above right). Surely, some of these are expendable? Possibly, but it’s not easy to be sure about this. Each one will have been installed by a program developed using that specific version of Visual C++ (a Microsoft programming tool). Uninstall one that one of your favourite programs relies on and you’ll run into problems. With each one under 20MB, we opted to leave them be – and we recommend you do the same.
Websites like Should I Remove It ( www.shouldiremoveit.com) can be useful for identifying unwanted programs, but it doesn’t cover all software. In that scenario, a web search of the program will usually direct you to helpful relevant forum discussions.
Occasionally, you’ll come across an obstinate program that throws up an infuriating error message when you try to uninstall it. For example, when we tried to remove Flightgear (which is actually a great free flight simulator - www.flightgear. org) using the Windows uninstaller, we got a ‘cannot uninstall’ message (probably because we’d moved the program after installing it). You can hunt the program down by searching for it in File Explorer and manually deleting its files, but it will probably leave traces behind.
After a recent update included a data-gathering and monitoring process that couldn’t be disabled (see Issue 536, page 60), the reputation of Ccleaner ( www.ccleaner.com) has taken a hit. This has since been removed, though, and we still think it’s a great program. To use its uninstaller tool select Tools, then Uninstall.
We also tried IOBIT Uninstaller ( www. snipca.com/29445), which removed our stubborn Flightgear program. IOBIT has been known to slip unwanted extras into its installation process, so make sure you untick any options you don’t want.
IOBIT Uninstaller also lets you tick multiple unwanted programs, then Uninstall. While batch-uninstalling junk programs with a single click may save you time, it can be risky. Bear in mind, these time-consuming prompt boxes can be useful (offering to keep any personal files you created with the program, for example). If you’re not sure about a certain program, then it’s best to uninstall it individually.
2Delete temporary files
They’re often derided, but temporary files play a vital role in the smooth running of your computer and are used by programs for tasks such as storing large amounts of data they can’t load into your PC’S memory. But if a program (or Windows) crashes, these temporary files can turn into permanent junk.
Windows has a useful tool that lets you quickly delete some of these temporary files – particularly those created by Windows itself. In Windows 10, it’s called Storage Sense; in Windows 7, it’s Disk Cleanup. They’re broadly similar (Microsoft has “deprecated” Disk Cleanup in Windows 10, which means it’s still available but likely to be removed soon) and offer to delete a variety of temporary files, including those relating to previous versions of Windows.
To run Storage Sense, go to Settings, System, Storage, then click ‘Free up space now’. For Disk Cleanup, open a File Explorer window (Windows+e), rightclick C drive, select Properties then, in the General tab, click ‘Disk Clean-up’.
After a few seconds of scanning, you’ll see a range of junk-removal options. Be careful if you’ve installed the October Update (version 1809) as both Storage Sense and Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 now classify your Downloads folder as potential junk and include an option to delete everything stored in it. This option is unselected by default. If you don’t consider your Downloads folder to be junk, make sure you don’t accidentally tick it.
Unlike Disk Cleanup, Storage Sense can be set to run on a schedule. Go to Settings, System, Storage and click ‘Change how we free up space automatically’. Under ‘Run Storage sense’, change the somewhat clunky-sounding ‘During low free disk space’ to ‘Every day’, ‘Every week’ or ‘Every month’ (see screenshot above). Below this, you can choose whether the automatic scans delete temporary files (we recommend you tick this option), along with how long files should stay in your recycle bin or Downloads folder before being deleted.
But Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense only go so far. The Temporary Internet Files cleaning option, for example, only removes temporary files created by IE and Edge, which doesn’t help users of Chrome, Firefox and other browsers.
For a deeper clean, it’s best to use other tools alongside the ones Windows provides, such as Ccleaner ( www. ccleaner.com) or Bleachbit ( www. bleachbit.org/download/windows – avoid the dreadful ads by clicking the small ‘Bleachbit installer.exe’ link). Both are incredibly easy to use. You just need to select the temporary files you want to remove, then click Analyze (in Ccleaner) or Preview (in Bleachbit) and review the files up for deletion. If you’re happy to proceed, click Run Cleaner (Ccleaner) or Clean (Bleachbit).
3Scan for duplicate files
Just like temporary files, duplicate files on your computer can’t always be classified as junk, such as the copy of a photo that you want to be able to return to should you make mistakes editing it. But it’s easy to create unnecessary copies of files – often by using Ctrl+c (copy) instead of Ctrl+x (cut) when moving them. On their own, they’re unlikely to take up much space, but a few years of accidental duplicates can lead to gigabytes of junk.
There are plenty of duplicate file finders available, ranging from the simple Duplicate Finder tool in Ccleaner, through to the powerful Alldup ( www. snipca.com/29447) that lets you create advanced searches. Whichever you choose, we recommend you exercise caution.
In Ccleaner, for example, you can scan your whole PC for duplicates by clicking the Tools menu, then Duplicate Finder. This search is likely to uncover thousands of duplicates, and it’ll be almost impossible to know which you can safely delete. For example, the same DLL file might appear more than once in different locations, but that’s often
because certain programs expect to see them in these specific locations. Delete one of the DLL duplicates and one or more of your programs is likely to run into problems.
Instead, tailor your duplicate search in Ccleaner so that it only returns specific files created by you, such as image, music and videos. To do this, click the blue Add button, then select the folder you want to look in, such as ‘C:\ Users\[your user name]’. Next, click File Types and enter the extensions of the files you want to search for. You can enter multiple file types, separated by commas (such as *.jpg, *.gif, *.png’ (see screenshot above). Under Options, select ‘Include files and subfolders’, click OK, then Search.
Once the scan is complete, you’ll see all duplicates. We recommend reviewing each individually, ticking those you want
to delete. If you just want to delete them all, right click any duplicate, click Select All, then Delete Selected.
It’s also worth running a search of your entire hard drive for duplicates over a certain size. Any duplicates of files more than 100MB, for example, warrant scrutiny. In the Ignore section, tick ‘File size under’ and change it to 100MB. Under ‘Drive or Folder’, tick the ‘C:\’ option and untick any others, then click Search.
4Find large junk files
Deleting duplicates is a good way to clear junk, but it’s also worth searching for files you simply don’t need any more. Clearing out old Word documents can be therapeutic, but it’s time consuming and unlikely to save much space on your hard drive. Instead, go for the big hitters: those huge, lumbering files that are long past being useful.
There are plenty of free tools to help weed out your large files (such as Windirstart – https://windirstat.net), but you can also just use File Explorer in Windows. Open a new File Explorer window (Windows+e), then type size:>500mb into the search box at the top-right corner (see screenshot left – you can change ‘500MB’ to any other minimum size).
You’ll now see a list of files greater than 500MB – depending on the size of your hard drive, this search may take a few minutes. You can save this search by clicking the ‘Save search’ button, letting you run it again at any time your Searches folder (you’ll find this at c:\ users\[your_username]\searches).
Next, review the search results. Some will be obvious candidates for deletion (such as large videos you no longer need), while the validity of others will be less clear. As always, if in doubt either do some research online or leave the file where it is.