Which is better?

[kmk_7110]

I've run out of room on the HDD for my computer and don't know which way is better to delete old programs that aren't used at all. Is the control panel > Add/Remove Programs the better way or uninstalling them from the Start > All programs > X program > Uninstall X Program? I always figured that the second way was better and I figured to get some expert opinion.

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: Which is better?

The price of harddrives is coming down all the time and although this is probably not what you want to hear you might want to consider getting a larger drive for a twofold purpose.Number one is that you will have more room for programs and number two is that you will have a backup for the files you already have,some of which might be precious to you.
When a harddrive gets full there is always the possibility that it is also getting near the end of its useful life and very often when a harddrive fails it does not give much notice of impending doom ahead of time.If you have a good backup regimen then you are all set there.
Having said that you will usually get the most bang for the buck so to speak by deleting graphics files to make more room on your harddrive and the best way to do that generally is to back them up to a CD or DVD and then delete them.
It goes without saying that a disk cleanup would be in order which will clean up a lot of cookies and useless files,empty the recycle bin etc and recover some disk space for you for a start.Once you have gotten the disk space back that you are happy with be sure and defragment the disk once or twice even to decrease the search time of the drive heads and speed up your system.Ron G

 

[dolluper]

Re: Which is better?

What are you running xp or windows 2000

 

[MikDee]

Re: Which is better?

Just a note here, if you have any saved movies, they take up a lot of disc space, copy, & delete them. I found they are usually so large that they won't fit in the recycle bin!

 

[arboldt]

Re: Which is better?

You've gotten some excellent advice already, but there's more information that could help us help you.

What is your computer? What is the size of your existing hard drive? What operating system are you running?

My employer has had some really tough financial situations along with lots of other reasons, so we're still running W2K on a 5GB hard drive (yeah, you read that right!) on a 650 MHz Dell. I cannot download any more Windows updates because there's no room. In this case, I can't really delete anything. One of these days it'll just crap out, and then I get another one from the surplus room with the same configuration. Oh well.

At home my wife's PC has a 30GB drive running W2K. It's fine for what she does with it. Mine has 320GB and XP. I've got lots of room yet.

Some super-techies might tell you the Add/Remove window is better than the application's Remove Program, but either one will probably leave beyond enough orphaned files that it really won't matter. Others have rightly suggested that your biggest return is to save off media files (videos, sound, and images) then delete them. I'd be leery of deleting any programs unless I was convinced they were totally junk and repulsive. Data (your files) is a *lot* easier to move around than program files.

You might also want to add or replace the hard drive if you can open the case and if the PC has the space and connectors -- almost all desktops do but laptops probably not. A slight variant is to get an external hard drive connecting via USB. If you watch for sales, you can find a 500GB external USB drive for under $100 -- the same or slightly more than an internal drive. The external isn't quite as fast as an internal, and there are a couple other minor issues, but the advantage of putting it away and using it as backup media sure is attractive -- one's on my wish list for Christmas.

Al

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Which is better?

I usually use the control panel option. I believe it will run the same routine however if you pick the Uninstall option. Its just easier to got through the list on the add/Remove/ programs list. After you do that, you may also want to scan your start menu for things not listed in the Add/Remove list.

another thing to do is to dump you internet cache files. If you dont' have the setting right, you may be dragging a LOT of history and web images around that are no longer useful. so use the Internet Options inteface to dump any offline content..

Also, empty your trash (recycle bin). You may have a surprising amount of stuff in there that you thought was cleared off the HD.

Anther thing to check is how much memory you have installed vs how much you use. Swap files can take a big chunk a well.

 

[kmk_7110]

Re: Which is better?

I'm sorry for the long time to respond. I have windows xp with a 160 gb hdd. I deleted a few things and freed up about 25 gigs and have a bit more to go, but the computer is still really slow. I haven't deleted any programs had a few movies on here that were like 4 gigs each.


Edit: I have more free space now then i do used.

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Which is better?

How much ram do you have? What is your max amount of ram that can be installed? The ram can be a factor on the speed of the machine also. Allot of the times if my computer starts to get really slow I will restore it back to factory condition. I also don't install games or other software if I can help it, and if I do it is at a minimum install. You will never use all the space in a 160 GB hard drive. Lets put it this way it will be hard to use all that space on the hard drive.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: Which is better?

I'm sorry for the long time to respond. I have windows xp with a 160 gb hdd. I deleted a few things and freed up about 25 gigs and have a bit more to go, but the computer is still really slow. I haven't deleted any programs had a few movies on here that were like 4 gigs each.


Edit: I have more free space now then i do used.

Start by opening the TaskManager (Control-Alt-Delete)...Taskmanager))
Have a look at the number of processes are loaded into memory. The more of those processes that are running, the less RAM memory is available to run a program in memory.
Some of those processes are loaded by the OS and can't be stopped without crashing the machine.
If you install some utilities or programs, they want to add themselves into your process list and consume more RAM memory. One that comes to mind is Quicktime. It loads itself into RAM memory when Windows boots and just sits there, taking up RAM memory space. They will claim, it's faster to 'call up' Quicktime IF NEEDED, since it's already loaded in memory. If you don't use Quicktime everyday, it's a waste of valuable RAM resources. This TSR , Terminate and Stay Resident, action, eats up RAM which could be used for other programs. Now lets add a few more TSR's and you'll see that all of them together siting in RAM are a waste of resources. Now, this does not mean the programs like Quicktime won't run, they will, just fine. Quicktime will just be loaded into RAM, from the HD, when YOU want it too, when it's needed as usual.
This is what I see a lot of. So many programs (processes), unused, eating RAM.
Now here's where it gets interesting....Windows will start using your spare HD space to swap data back of forth in what it calls Virtual Memory because RAM is so short. This writing and reading (swap file) takes time. It's certainly no where near as fast as RAM memory is, so you start seeing a slow down in performance.

So, how do you fix this? Here are some tips.

Start by going through you list of processes and take note of the ones that were installed , but not needed when you start Windows. In the case of Quicktime, launch Quicktime, goto settings and find the section where it asks if you want it to load when Windows Starts, uncheck that option. Do the same for the programs you see that have a loaded process but aren't used on a regular basis. TIP: The icons in the lower RIGHT hand corner are loaded into memory. When you tell Quicktime to NOT start with Windows, it's lower right hand icon will be gone , after you reboot and the memory it was using will be freed up.
Re-installing your OS is just starting over from scratch, of course it's going to be faster, there's less junk eating you resources. It's not always the best or only solution.
TIP: Google the name of an entry from your process list. You see that some of them are Windows OS processes and some are not.

Dump the junk Temp files, Recycle bin, Internet Web caches etc.
Defrag your HD
Run Crap Cleaner (Google it) to clean out your Registry and junk files.
Watch the processes list ect.

 

[kmk_7110]

Re: Which is better?

Thanks for the help so far. I defraged and it helped a lot.

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: Which is better?

A quick way to eliminate the startup programs is to click on start/run and type msconfig in the box and click OK.The configuration box that opens will allow you to see the startup programs that load and the services that are loading and running when you boot up the computer.You can uncheck the programs that you do not want to load and as was said previously you can Google any of the items that you have questions about.Remember that anytime you run an update on any of those programs like Quicktime and Acrobat for instance you will need to go back to msconfig again to uncheck the boxes because they will install themselves again to load when you boot up.Also check the "start" box in "programs" and make sure it is empty or at the very least make sure that you want what is being loaded at boot up as lots of applications install themselves there as well.On a badly fragmented harddrive it might be wise to run defrag more than once,sometimes three or four times to get it where it ought to be.Ron G

 

[kmk_7110]

Re: Which is better?

Is there any way being admin to have certain programs not run on the non admin names. My parents are computer illiterate and when the msn messenger and other ims that i want to keep up start up they get really mad at me.

 

[i386]

Re: Which is better?

I've run out of room on the HDD for my computer and don't know which way is better to delete old programs that aren't used at all. Is the control panel > Add/Remove Programs the better way or uninstalling them from the Start > All programs > X program > Uninstall X Program? I always figured that the second way was better and I figured to get some expert opinion.

Lots of good advice here, but to answer your question...

When you install software it will come with a program to uninstall it. Both uninstall methods you mentioned launch the same uninstaller. Unfortunately, the uninstaller rarely if ever remove every trace of the program. After you uninstall you may want to delete the files from:

program files\program name
documents and settings\your name\application data\program name
documents and settings\your name\local settings\application data\program name

also in the registry...
HKLM\software\vendor\program name
HKCU\software\vendor\program name

These are just general guidelines. Your mileage may vary greatly for different types of software. Norton products for example have a much more complex removel process than that.

It never hurts to backup your registry before you start adding/deleting things to/from it. Xcuseme knows of a great registry "backer upper" but I forget what it's called.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: Which is better?

Norton products for example have a much more complex removel process than that.

Gees O' Pete, if that ain't the truth! HA!

Do a search for Erunt with it's companion program NTRegOpt....both come in the same d/l .

I use Hirens boot cd to get to a Dos shell, cd to c:\erunt\date_of_backup to restore your complete registry. I don't bother trying to restore a complete registry using Windows. Seems Windows doesn't backup all of the registry hives.....Erunt does.

i386 gives excellent advice.....backup your registry before you start changing anything....you can thank him later.