Disc clean-up is really slow

I'm trying to remove old compressed file's but all I get is 2-3 click's on he progress bar.
Where can I find the folder source? :confused

 

operating system please? would help everyone

 

Ahoy Capn.
I was a bit vague... :-o
I'm running Win. Xp Pro 32bit Sp3. (NTFS)
Is this enough?

 

should be.is this what you tried?
Begin by first clicking on the Start Button.

Then move your mouse over the All Programs icon to display all Start Menu folders.

If your Start Menu is set to the Classic View, move your mouse over the Programs folder instead.

Now, move your mouse onto the Accessories menu folder until it expands.

Then move your mouse onto the System Tools menu folder until it expands.

Now Click on the Disk Cleanup icon to launch the program.

Windows XP will automatically select your hard drive to clean up for you

In the Files to delete: section some items will already contain check marks.

For a thorough Clean Up, Ensure all unchecked boxes are checked by using your mouse.

Then click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen to begin the Clean Up Process.

Windows will ask you if you are sure that you want to perform these actions.

Select YES to have Disk Cleanup begin the Clean Up process.

Disk Cleanup will quickly delete the selected files and will then exit on its own.never had that problem when had XP Pro.all other programs closed correct?

 

Back again...
What you've just sent me is the 1'st thing I did.
My prob. is the progress doesn't seem to be running.
Task mngr. however tells me the app. is fine.
Do you know where the compressed old file's are kept so I can remove them manually?

 

kind of thought you had done that already,just checking.when I went to SP3 from SP2 on one of two machines things got strange.removed SP3 voila back n the saddle again however if you want you could try this.clean cache first.

Cleanup is freezing/hanging because it is searching for old files that should be compressed. To remedy this run regedit, click on My Computer. Open up Edit and click on Find. Type in "Compress Old" (less the quotation marks) and click Find Next. Regedit will find the Compress Old Files key. Press Delete and when it asks if you are sure click OK. Reboot and Disk Cleanup will run like a breeze. If you don't want to go there absolutely understand then wait for someone else to chime in on this.as a rule not crazy about using regedit myself I used run to access it though kinda like msconfig(didn't like fooling around there either)never trie access via My Computer though.that makes sense

 

g'day Binaryfreek

when disk cleanup is compressing old files it does by searching for files that have not been used for a determined period of time so if you have not used this function in a while or it is the first time you have used it it will take some time to complete.
you can try changing the number of days to a longer period ie:instead of 30 days change it to 60 days then it will search for files that haven't been used for over 60 days .do this by going into disk cleanup highlight compress files then click on the options button and change the default days to a higher number.once it has completed the cleaning process go back and change it to the original setting and run it again.

 

This particular prob. has been dealt with... I already increased the time limit.
(1 step ahead of ya' there m8)

Cheer's