Duplicate and Triplicate a la Carte Too Much

Hullo all,
I also have many duplicate files ... 1.7Gbytes on a harddrive with onlt 17Gb used.
I have thought for a long time about what could safely be deleted and what not but still unsure.
If a company that were to have a true and safe method for scanning puters I think they'd be very successful.
My machine has slowed down in the last two weeks and I've scanned and found all the attached files.
Does anybody know a safe way to clear up my system?
I've just put all the SP2 upgrades onto my 3 year old XP.
I run Norton Corporate, Spybot, AdAware Pro, Ewido Premium and defrag regularly as well as CrapCleaner.
Hope someone can help both myself and Denise M.
Cheers.
Please Click ....


http://img18.imagevenue.com/loc555/th_01240_37285_DLL_01__555lo.jpghttp://img37.imagevenue.com/loc371/th_01247_37291_Duplicate01__371lo.jpghttp://img101.imagevenue.com/loc486/th_01253_37296_Duplicate02__486lo.jpg

 

Deleting duplicate programs can lead to some serious problems unless you are certain about them. Having said that you can turn off "System Restore", then turn it back on and create a restore point this will dump a fair amount of accumulated garbage. You can also use Advanced Window Care available at MG here http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4991 this will dump another load of garbage, and speed up things as well. Hope that helps

 

Thanks BCGray from BC .. Have changed restore point and loaded aforementioned 'Window Care' programme but still slow as billyoe and well over a Gigabyte of Duplicates.
Things were fine 'til I updated all the SP2 'goodies' but it failed to load "Microsoft.NET Framework" files. I've tried this twice and it keeps failing. I'm wondering if this is preventing removal of duplicates subsequent to the SP2 update...
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
JS.

 

Most of those files that you showed within those pictures, are files that are located within the uninstall portions of all the updates you have done on your computer.

Only places I'd check for duplicate files are your desktop and your "my documents".

 

Hi all once again ..
After many late nights and long days, I've found an absolute answer and my putey is running much better.
According to an article by a chap who is ex-Microsoft, I could delete ALL the files in the folder Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download
It contained about a Gigabyte and that was last night and it's fine.
He also suggested ALL the $..uninst..$ files (except$hf_mig) can be scrubbed too as the possibilities of having to uninstall a singular programme is most unlikely.
I am still a novice but this is what I've found and it works for me.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Cheers,
JS

 

If it is not too late, and you have not deleted them all already, may I suggest that you backup all the $..Uninst..$ programs to Dvd or CD.

I have had to delete a couple, as the MS downloads were found to be corrupt.
Belarc Advisor found the corrupted downloads and said to uninstall them.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Belarc_Advisor_d1385.html

Bazza

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Geeze Bazza, that's a good idea indeedy and in future I'll do backups though the $uninstalls$ are all gone now.
Thanks again.

 

I've known about the $...uninst...$ files, and that other one, but, if one had an issue with a patch, then you can't uninstall it. Like the infamous, IE7 beta and ccleaner (ccleaner has been fixed). You can run ccleaner, and check the advanced option to clean those files out.

 

Greetings all,
I thought I'd better clarify a bit on what I did to sped up my baby and 'lose' a gigabyte of flab.
In Google, I typed in "delete windows/softwaredistribution" and was eventually led to this post by former Microsoft Techie:
Tidying Up After Installing SP2
by Alex Nichol
http://aumha.org/win5/a/sp2faq.php#after
I hope this can useful to someone else as well.
Cheers,
JS.

 

Thanks for the link, Jim. The link is well worth checking out, and bookmark it. Bazza