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COMPUTER BITS
BY JASON COLE
Norton Utilities V2 For Win95; Pt.3
No matter how big your hard disc drive is,
it’s all too easy for it to become cluttered
with obsolete or duplicate files. This is where
Norton’s “Space Wizard” utility comes in
handy. It goes through the drive and
searches for files that can be safely deleted.
When the Space Wizard utility is
started, it asks you to choose between
an Express deletion process or a
Comprehensive deletion pro
cess –
see Fig.1. We will concentrate on the
Comprehensive process here, because
the Express method is in fact just a
scaled down version.
In the Express process, you are
asked just a few questions such as
“Do you want to empty the Recycle
Bin now?” You are also asked to select
which file types you want deleted.
Space Wizard looks through the hard
drive and also locates other files that it
believes can be deleted, such as *.tmp
files and any files inside a “Temp”
directory.
As with all of Norton’s programs,
you are taken systematically through
the process. However, no matter how
advanced this program is, there are
some things to watch out for. For ex
ample, I have a Root Directory called
Fig.1: Space Wizard offers two methods of creating disc
space: Express and Comprehensive. The latter method
will recover much more disc space.
80 Silicon Chip
“Temp”. At first this directory was
in fact just a temporary one, which
held files that I could delete when
required. However, I now use this
directory to hold quite a few files that
I want to keep.
As you might expect, Norton’s
Space Wizard automatically marks
all the files in this folder for deletion.
Initially, I got around this by manually
deselecting the files I wanted to keep
but this took quite some time as there
was lots of files. So, if you make a
habit of using the Temp directory to
hold files that you might want to keep,
then you have a couple of choices:
(1) Temporarily change the name of
the directory before running Space
Wizard; or
(2) Permanently change the name of
the directory to something else and
then create a new Temp directory.
Note that you must create a new Temp
Fig.2: Space Wizard selects all files which it regards as
temporary but you have the option of deselecting any files
you want to keep.
Fig.3: Space Wizard also displays a list of “commonly
discardable files”. These are not automatically selected
for deletion; you choose the files to be discarded.
directory because some programs rely
on its presence in order to function
correctly.
The comprehensive method
The Comprehensive method does
much more than the Express method
when it comes to recovering space on
your hard disc drive. It includes all
the functions already described for
the Express method and, in addition,
it searches the entire hard disc drive
for infrequently used files, duplicate
files and “commonly discardable files
and folders”. Let’s take a closer look
at what it offers.
The operational procedure is quite
Fig.4: Space Wizard can track down files which have not
been used for a nominated period of time. Once again,
you tick the files that you want to delete.
straightforward. After starting Space
Wizard, you choose the Comprehen
sive method, press Next and then
select which hard drive you want
to find room on. Space Wizard then
scans the hard disc drive and comes
back with a series of questions.
The first question is: Do you want
to empty the recycle bin? Select yes
so that it can delete the bin contents.
Space Wizard will then select files
which are generally temporary; eg,
*.tmp and any files located in Temp
folders (Fig.2). It is a good idea to
check through these and deselect any
files that you want to keep.
Next, you are shown a listing of
Fig.5: want to track down files larger than a certain size?
No problem – Space Wizard can display all files larger
than a nominated value between 1Kb and 999Mb.
commonly discardable files (Fig.3).
These are not selected for deletion but
can be – the choice is yours.
Many people will have files on their
hard disc drive which haven’t been
used for months, if not years. These
files remain there mainly because they
have been forgotten about but Space
Wizard can track them down. All you
have to do is choose the period of time
since the files were accessed (from one
day to 999 years). You then tick the
files that you want to delete (Fig.4).
What about large files? In this case,
Space Wizard searches the drive for
files larger than a nominated value
between 1Kb and 999Mb and presents
Fig.6: Space Wizard can locate files that have the same
size, time and date. These are all checked using a binary
comparison method to make sure they are identical.
March 1998 81
Fig.8 (above): all other applications should be shut down
before running Space Wizard to avoid error messages like
the one shown above.
Fig.7 (left): as a final step, Space Wizard displays all the
files that have been selected for deletion. You then have a
choice of actually deleting files, compressing selected files
and storing them as a “zip” file, or moving certain files to
a new location.
you with a list, as shown in Fig.5. If
you now click on the Allocated tab,
the files will be sorted in size order,
either from smallest to largest or vice
versa.
Another possibility is duplicate
files. To track these down, Space Wiz
ard goes through the hard drive and
locates files that have the same size,
time and date. These files are then
checked using a binary comparison
method to make sure that they are
identical, even though their names
may be different (Fig.6).
Be careful what you delete here. A
command.com file is stored in both
the Windows directory and the root
directory and both are used. Do not
delete any files that you are unsure
about.
The final step
The final step is crucial. Space
Wizard displays all the files that
have been selected for deletion and
this will be your last chance to keep
any wanted files. However, if you are
unsure as to whether or not you can
live without some of these files, you
can compress them and store them as
a “zip” file in a designated location
on the hard drive. That way, if you
find that you actually needed a file,
you can uncompress it.
Save Network Hassles With Quick Log-On
Do you have two or more computers on a small Win95 local
area network with resources shared back and forth between
them? If so, this can create problems during boot-up because
one computer cannot connect to the resources shared on
another computer until that computer has been switched on.
If you do try to map the drives on a computer that is switched
off, you will get an error message. However, depending on the
setup, this may be unavoidable, because it is impossible to
boot all the machines simultaneously.
Fortunately, the way around the problem is quite simple.
Here’s what to do: double click the Network icon in the Control
Panel, then choose Client For Microsoft Networks from the list
of installed components and click the Properties button. This
brings up the dialog box shown at right. Now all you have to do
is choose Quick Logon from the Network Logon Options list.
From now on, Windows will simply log you onto the network
when you boot but won’t try to reconnect the drives until you
use them.
82 Silicon Chip
For the remaining files, just select
them and click the Delete button and
they will be gone (Fig.7).
Another option is to move all the
files to a new location, so that you can
easily delete them later on if they are
not needed.
By the way, while I was writing this
article, I ran Space Wizard at the same
time. When Space Wizard performed
its first scan, it came up with the error
message shown in Fig.8. This was
because that particular file was in use
by Word. It is therefore a good idea
to shut down all other applications
before running Space Wizard, to avoid
SC
similar messages.
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