Hmm. That's quite large for a 98SE C:\WINDOWS folder. When I install 989SE I usually end up with a 360:600 MB TOTAL usage on the drive. Start with responses 3 & 4. As DAVEINCAPS touched on in his #4, remove any programs you don't really use (or use very rarely). There are a lot of text files in the WINDOWS folder that not many people read. These pertain to config.sys commands, autoexec commands, msdos.sys entries, et al. If you find some that ~you~ haven't read, it's a good bet you don't need them. Get rid of them. Any contents they hold can be readily found on line, usually updated I might add as 98 is quite old now. Crap Cleaner can be a good thing if used with a certain degree caution. I've just acquired a sixth machine so unfortunately my 98SE (5th of 5 machines) has been blown away to make inroads in system upgrading. I'll have it loaded again within probably 30 hours. As I don't want to run on my brains memory I'll check back on this thread once 98SE is loaded for possible additions to the suggestions presented here. (My memory has proved to be fallible in these forums in the past.) ;>) It's a good day when you learn something

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still love this file for 98 & Me http://www.burzurq.com/forum/delind... larry

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Hi Nelson3425, Sabertooth, OtheHill, DAVEINCAPS, Stephen Fox, orbital, Dan Penny, larryf215, hi everyone I think for starters there are plenty of good, simple and safe options offered. Deal with everyone of them first and see how far the Windows folder size has been reduced. Once your done and have regained your hard disk capacity, there are a few other things for you to do. Stehpen, I was reffering to the Windows folder as that is what Nelson3425 mentioned to be 2.29 GB in size and in my, and obviously not only mine, opinion that is outrages for Windows 98. Dan, I don't believe your last remark. :-) Nelson3425 keep us posted on the progress you made with the above instructions. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

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Hi Everyone, Ccleaner seems to have done the trick. My Windows folder is now down to 853 mb from 2.29GB, so I've regained some hard disk capacity, thank goodness. (Prior to posting the first time, I had already run Disk Cleanup, emptied the recycle bin, removed old programs, etc.). To Larryf215: I downloaded delindex, but took one look and was intimidated, so haven't run it yet. To The Count: you suggested that there are some other things I can do at this point. Any further ideas (although I'm quite pleased at this point). Thanks everyone for the great help. Nelson

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Nelson While I have used CCleaner I prefer to simply go to Windows Explorer and Under Temporary Internet files I expand the content IE5 folder. Then I delete all the subfolders under it except for Index.dat & desktop.ini. After that, I highlight and delete all the remaining files under Temporary internet. This accomplishes the same thing that CCleaner does but I THINK CCleaner also looks elsewhere and I am satisfied with just removing the above. This works under Win98, not sure if possible running newer versions of windows. Of course I regularly run Adaware SE & Spybot S&D.

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"Ccleaner seems to have done the trick. My Windows folder is now down to 853 mb from 2.29GB, so I've regained some hard disk capacity," Realizing your Windows folder just lost close to 65% of its size in absolute crap. I'm sure the above is more like an understatement..........LOL That is also a record for me, the most garbage I've seen CCleaner dump at a go was around 800MB. I suggest you consider cultivating a computing maintenance habit from now on ;-)

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Hi Nelson, Sabertooth, OtheHill, DAVEINCAPS, Stephen Fox, orbital, Dan Penny, larryf215, hi everyone Nelson, I have to get back to you sometime tomorrow. I feel rather tired right now, I will glance over some other threads and than call it the night for today. It's 01:01 hours over here. I do want to say you have done well, with CCleaner, narrowing down your Windows folder from 2.29 GB to 853 MB! :-) In preparation for tomorrow, or so, I would like you to download and install WinME it's defrag utility. WinME it's defrag utility does a much better, faster, job as it's Win9x predecessors. You can find a download copy here: Win98 Defrag Problems The download file is a .zip file and has to be extracted/unzipped before you can run the included install.bat. (http://www.mesich.com/defrag.html) Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

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The Count -> I have a home recording studio (I'm a musician (guitarist)) so I have three machines in the studio, one on the main floor (main machine) and one in the master bedroom for the TV tuner (card in that system, ATI All In Wonder 128). This newly acquired system (IBM Aptiva E26) will serve as my 98 test base. I run XP on all machines except this last one. This will be my experimental system (until I get another!). I can reload 98 within an hour if need be. It's a good day when you learn something

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Hi Nelson, Sabertooth, OtheHill, DAVEINCAPS, Stephen Fox, orbital, Dan Penny, larryf215, hi everyone Dan, I am so sorry about the confusion, I was referring to your last sentence; "My memory has... ...in the past." I highly respect your opinion and insights, I thought you knew that and figured that you would understand that I was kidding around. I mean common it's me I am back, like yourself, eventually I always return home one way or the other; The Count/Mesich/Mesich/The Count ;-) Anyway, how are you, your toe and your dogs doing? I hope you all are doing well! Nelson, In regards to the question you asked larryf215, as far as I am concerned there is no need to be concerned about or intimidated by delindex.bat, just as long as you know the account(s) and password(s) used to access websites like this one that require you to login with a account and password before you are able to post etc. I have tested version 5.1 today on three different machines, and after a few small modifications (language issue was the main reason, had to change echo Y|del in to echo J|del) it worked flawless. When I have time enough at hand, or are feeling bored, I might rewrite it in to Dutch as did Frenchie in to France. :-) As for my other suggestions, once more I like to say that you have done a great job with the help/use of CCleaner but still I find (and that is my personal feeling) the Windows folder to large in size. And Stephen that is for a Win98 SE folder. ;-) I would like you to run JDiskReport as mentioned by Sabertooth in response #2, or download, install and run TreeSize Free and post back which folder(s) in your Windows folder are taking up the largest amount of disk space. In my case that are the System and Profiles folder, where in the System folder the files are taking up most of the space and in the Profiles folder my account is taking up most of the space. (http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml) While you are awaiting for an other reply, start running Scandisk and fix or let it fix the problems if they are encountered. When Scandisk is finished, hopefully without any error messages, return to your desktop and right click on "My Computer" and select Properties, click on the Performance tab, click on the Virtual Memory button and set the virtual memory to 0 (zero) both for Minimum and Maximum, click OK 2x and reboot the computer. Now the system might be slower while booting, but don't worry about that, start the Defrag utility once Windows is completely loaded and run Defrag on all hard drives, in the pull down menu scroll all the way down. This can take up quite a while even hours, depending on the hard disk drive size, how long ago it has been run for the last time, how heavily the drives are defraged. Just let it do it's job, next time it will be much, much faster. When the Defrag utility has completed it's job, you can click on Yes and close the window. Now again right click on "My Computer", click on Properties, click on the Virtual Memory tab and set the virtual memory to a Minimum of 141 MB and a Maximum of 256 MB or set both to 256 MB and click twice on OK. Don't reboot just yet... Go to the Control Panel and click on the Internet (options) icon, at the General tab locate the Temporary Internet settings and click on the Settings button. Reduce the size of Temporary Internet files by moving the slide-bar to the left, mine is set on this PC to 37 MB meaning that my Temporary Internet Files will never ever exceed 37 MB of my free available disk space. Click OK twice, now you may reboot your computer. I hope you will notice a improvement in performance. Cultivate the maintenance habit, as suggested by Sabertooth, by performing a crap clean up, scandisk and defrag on a regular basis. Not to forget run Anti-virus and Anti-spyware on a even more regular basis, Anti-virus preferable daily. With setting the Virtual Memory and the Temporary Internet Files size to a maximum allowed size, a predefined maximum amount of the hard disk drive capacity is reserved for the system for it's swap file and Temporary Internet Files. It costs you the maximum, you set, set amount for disk space but you are sure of one thing everything else consuming your hard disk drive's space is either data (documents and so) you processed or as you have seen with CCleaner in the long run useless crap. I apologize for the lengthy post, but hope that what I wrote is of use and clear to you, I also hope I haven't missed something crucial, otherwise I hope someone else will fill up the gaps... it's past 02:41 and I really need to turn in for the night. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

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Hi The Count, I ran ScanDisk and defrag as you suggested. I also downloaded TreeSize, and here's what I found: SYSTEM (264MB), TEMP(181MB), [FILES](136MB), APPLICATION DATA(74MB), etc. Within SYSTEM, 218MB is taken up by [FILES]. I've also set the Temporary Internet Files to 37MB, as you suggested. What's the reason for setting Virtual Memory to "0" while defragmenting? Also, what's the advantage of setting those, rather than letter Windows manage them?

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I can think of 2 reasons to disable the swapfile when defragging. The swapfile uses vacant space wherever it's at. By disabling it and then defragging, all the files are moved to the front of the drive and the swapfile, when re-enabled, moves outside that area. With its constant reading and writing to the drive, the swapfile causes more wear and tear than do other files not being used. So as much as is possible it's best to keep it away from the file area. The second reason is defrag restarts whenever 'disk contents change'. So when the swapfile is accessed during defrag it restarts. (I'm not sure if setting the swapfile size to zero and disabling it are the same thing but I have noticed that sometimes when I've disabled it--and rebooted--and run defrag it still uses the swapfile.)

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Hi Nelson, Sabertooth, OtheHill, DAVEINCAPS, Stephen Fox, orbital, Dan Penny, larryf215, hi everyone Better late as not at all... The System folder size looks reasonable to me, the Temp folder however looks like it needs some major cleaning up. The Application Data Folder, may or may not be on the big size. A more detailed look at that folder can reveal that. Create a folder called Trash in the root of your C: drive, copy and paste the entire contents from the Temp folder in to the newly created Trash folder. Verify you have the same amount of files/folders and size in the Trash folder as in the Temp folder, if so, delete the contents of the Temp folder and reboot the computer and check that it still boots well. It should. Assuming it boots well, run the computer for a week or so as you are used too. After this period of time and you haven't noticed any problems you can return to the Trash folder and either delete the entire contents, regaining another 181 MB of hard disk capacity. Or first select the file(s) and/or folder(s) you wish to keep and safe them elsewhere and than [Shift]+[Delete] the remaining clutter in the Trash folder. My reasoning for setting the virtual memory to 0 (zero) before you began the defragmentation of your hard disk drive(s), for the first time since... , is very well substantiated by DAVEINCAPS. Thank you, DAVEINCAPS! The main advantage, in my opinion, to setting the virtual memory to predefined values over letting Windows handling it is: You know exactly how much hard disk capacity is being reserved, and used as needed, for the swap file. Windows (read the Operating System) is guarantied of a fixed amount of available hard disk space for it's virtual memory. The OS doesn't have to fill the gaps while looking for free space on a (heavily) defragmented or full hard disk. When the fixed amount of memory, actually hard disk space, is set after running Defrag it doesn't get defragged as it usually is set in one contiguous and unmovable block. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

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hmm, try defrag in safe mode. will it not use the swap file?

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