Windows Tip: Start Your Day With A Fresh Computer, Step Two: Automate Hard Drive Cleaning
Table Of Contents
This is the Second Step in the Fresh Computer Series.
- Update Windows (Optional)
- Automate Hard Drive Cleaning
- Automate Hard Drive Defragmentation
- Automate A Reboot
- Automatically Open Your Browser
- Conclusion
Setup Automatic Hard Drive Cleaning
Download the two files below and save them to you Clean Machine folder (C:\Program Files\Clean Machine), just remember to save them file with a .bat extension. Also, if you’d like to make sure that there isn’t any malicious code (which I suggest, it’s your system – don’t trust anyone!), right-click the downloaded file and click Edit (or open them in Notepad).
Downloads
Run the “Automate Hard Drive Cleaning - Config” file. It will run Window’s Disk Cleanup utility and let you select what you want to delete. Whatever you choose here will be remembered every time you run the file (You can change these settings later if you choose by rerunning the Config file). I select everything except for the Recycle Bin. This way, if I need to recover a document, I still can.
Schedule The Task
- Navigate to: Control Panel -> Scheduled Tasks -> Add Scheduled Task
(Alternately, you run this from the Run dialog: control schedtasks)
- Hit Next in the dialog box that opens.
- In the Scheduled Task Wizard, navigate to the Automate Hard Drive Cleaning batch file:
c:\Program Files\Clean Machine\Automate Hard Drive Cleaning.bat - Click Next. Set this task to run Daily.
- Click Next. Enter the time and date for the task. Set the Start time for 4:00 AM and Perform the task Every Day.
- In the next screen, enter in the username and the password for your Windows user account [1].
- Hit Finish and you’re done!
[1] This user needs to be a System Administrator.
Next, we can proceed to Fresh Computer Series Step Three: Automate Hard Drive Defragmentation.
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Those are some really good tips! Now I don’t have to clean up the system every week.
yeah, but are you going to actually do it
Yeah, that really is the key to the series - you can set up the computer to manage all of these cleanup chores for you - but you do have to set it up first!
Very good, but I suggest the free stuff. Crap Cleaner is good and highly rated. ccleaner dot com.
Down with MS.
I’m going to give Crap Cleaner a try purely because it’s called Crap Cleaner.
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I have a TEMP file in a different location, different drive, that is ignored by Windows Disk Cleanup. This could be added (http://snipurl.com/1tbm3) with this Registry edit, but these directions are confusing.
Thanks 
I think the Windows98 example may work for Windows2000, but not sure. Can the parameters they give here can be used universally, or if they are specific to the few examples given, there is no clue. Will the folder cleanup option appear only when the correct drive is selected, or does that need one of the parameters they don’t explain?
Could you do a better job of explaining it, so we can make Disk Cleanup point to whatever TEMP directories we want?
A “better job”? I thought this was clear enough….
These tips are for XP & Vista. For Windows 98, you’ll have to keep looking, I don’t have that OS installed anywhere so I can’t even test it for you!
The reference was to the explanation in the link I gave, where they gave several XP examples, and for some reason, tossed in one Win98 example.Your posts do a fine job of automating Windows’ Disk Cleanup tool. However, the point of the discussion (at the link I gave) was that the tool’s default cleanup locations miss some folders, and so leave some/lots of “junk” on the disc. I think this would be a problem whether or not it runs automatically?I just saw that at the bottom (of the linked page) there is one good example for XP, for what I want to do. However, some of the Registry commands they use throughout the thread could use better explanation … given your interest in showing people how to use the Disc Cleanup tool, thought you might have some comments.