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Perform a
moderate
clean-up
NEED TO FREE UP MORE SPACE
AND RESOURCES? ARMED WITH
THE RIGHT THIRD-PARTY TOOLS
YOU CAN GIVE WINDOWS A
MORE THOROUGH CLEAN.Now we’re going to show you how to take your
cleaning efforts further using free third-party
tools. As always, caution should be your
keyword. While cleaning out gigabytes of data
is satisfying, it soon loses its allure if you have
been too hasty and discover that program
shortcuts have been removed.REMOVE APPS THOROUGHLY
One big issue with standard uninstallers is that
they tend to be conservative, leaving detritus
behind. While you could use a Registry
cleaner, the best time to tidy up is when you
remove a program.
Our tool of choice is IObit Uninstaller
(w w w.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.
php), which offers to do a “powerful scan”
after a standard app uninstaller has finished.
This roots out leftover files and Registry
entries, which you can then decide whether
or not to keep.
During installation, look out for any
prompts to install Advanced SystemCare Free
— it’s from the IObit stable, so safe, but not
needed for this feature. Once done, Uninstaller
will launch and you’ll see a list of programs,
along with a number of options — ‘All
Programs’ and so on, which will appear in
the left pane.
You’ll see a bin button appear on the right
of each entry — click this and the program in
question will be uninstalled. IObit Uninstaller
offers to take a System Restore point before
uninstalling, which we recommend. It’ll theninvoke the program’s own uninstaller, ignore
any prompts to reboot at this point, and then
perform its own scan. This roots out potential
leftovers in the forms of files and Registry
entries — you review the list and decide what
to remove. Then you can reboot if necessary.
To remove programs in batches, tick each
program you want to get rid of, then click
Uninstall. The Programs list focuses on
desktop programs only, so select Windows
Apps to get a list of apps you’ve installed
through the Microsoft Store. You can remove
these in a similar fashion. Select ‘Toolbars &
Plug-ins’ to quickly review the browser
add-ons you’ve installed and remove any you
don’t want or need.CLEAN MORE SETTINGS
One of the best free clean-up tools is CCleaner
(www.piriform.com). Once installed, the app
boasts a number of tools to help you free up
drive space. Its main cleaning component
searches more than just basic Windows
settings, but includes browser settings, and
popular programs and apps too. It’s tempting
to click Analyse and clean out everything it
recommends, but you’ll end up losing
potentially useful settings. The step-by-step
guide opposite reveals how to free up space
without deleting those files you didn’t know
you needed.
Outside its primary cleaning element,
CCleaner offers seven more clean-up tools,
although we recommend that you skip its
Registry cleaning component.
Its Startup tool, for example, provides you
with a more comprehensive list of programs
and items that launch with Windows. This is
split into three tabs: Windows, which contains
a list of programs, organised by location;
Scheduled Tasks, which enables you to review
which tasks both Windows and other appshave set up; and Advanced, which details
various Windows-related tasks. You should
leave these alone, so leave the box unticked
after viewing it.
One final tab, Context Menu, is worth
exploring. Frustrated at how programs clutter
up the menus that appear when you right-click
items in File Explorer? You’ll find these items
here, referencing Directory (when you right-
click a folder), Drive and File (when you
right-click a specific file type). Again, disable
or delete those you don’t want — if they come
back, examine the offending program’s own
preferences or settings to see if you can disable
them from there, or use its intransigence as an
excuse to remove the app completely.MORE T WEAKS
The Browser Plugins tab works in a similar
way to IObit Uninstaller’s. Skip the ‘Disk
Analyzer’ and ‘Duplicate Finder’ tools for now
— we’ll look at these overleaf.
System Restore lets you view all the Restore
points on your PC. Each one is labelled and
you’re able to remove them individually or in
groups (hold [Ctrl] as you click each one to
select it) without affecting other Restore
points. The most recent Restore point is
always greyed out for safety reasons.
The final tool — Driver Wiper — makes
it possible to wipe free space or an entire drive
securely. This is a slow process, and should
only be followed when you have sensitive
data to wipe. You can also wipe free space
and mark non-deleted files and folders for
secure removal from CCleaner’s main Cleaner
component — scroll down to the bottom of
the Windows tab and tick each box. If you’d
like CCleaner to securely wipe all files from
its cleaner tool, go to ‘Options > Settings’
and select ‘Secure file deletion (Slower)’.Use CCleaner to strip back your context
menus to make them more manageable.IObit Uninstaller provides you
with a powerful scan tool for
removing extra leftover elements.FEATUREDEEP CLEAN YOUR WINDOWS PC