Clean up safe to delete?

[jutah]

Hi all,

I am really running low on my c drive and trying to clean it up. I was actually down to 2mb free! I am running win xp and I found under the c:windows dir there are a lot of directories with $ in the front of there name and contain files like spuninst.exe and spmsg.dll. I have about 200 0f them and they on avg are about 2mb a piece. I am thinking it is ok to remove them, I just want to make sure? Also any other good spots to clean up junk files?


Thanks,

Jutah

[jaqu]

I wouldn't delete anything under c:\windows unless I know EXACTLY what I am deleting. Even then its probably still a bad idea.

I assume you have tried the builtin Windows "disk cleanup" temporary file cleaner? There are also other temp file cleaners that would free up space. My favorite is ATF Cleaner ATF-Cleaner.exe - www.atribune.org

But the best way of all to free up space is to uninstall unwanted programs and delete unwanted stuff (music, movies) and if there is nothing you want to delete then start writing stuff to dvd's or other HDD's.

[Steve R Jones]

Those are files that allow you to uninstall Windows Updates. If you are certaing you don't want or need to uninstall an update then go ahead and delete.

[stroyal]

Be careful with .tmp files also, it used to be safe to delete all of them, but programs are using them on a permanent basis now.
For example Zone Alarm stores some if not all user settings there, and they don't come back after a restart.
Avast is another one.
Windows won't let you uninstall them, if they are in use.

I uninstalled them in safe mode, and found out the hard way.

[jutah]

Thanks guys

jutah