Technology Advice

by on January 5, 2008 · 12 comments

If you get your technology advice from the Orlando Sentinel, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be deleting random files from your hard drive:

Photos, videos, music and unneeded applications — and the files that you download to install them — can also slow down and clutter up your computer. Go to the place where you store these items on your computer, and choose the view them by “details.” or “list,” if you are on a Mac. Then click on “Size” to sort your items by how big they are. Try to delete as many large files as you can. If you are unsure about deleting a file, looking at the “Date Modified” field to see the last time you used that file may help you decide. The same thing goes for .exe files, which are the files you download to install a program. Once you have a program installed, there’s no need to hang on to the .exe file that you used to install it. The equivalents on a Mac are .dmg files.

Wow. That doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me.

Update: The story seems to have been modified with some less-terrible advice:

An earlier version of this column may have given the wrong impression about deleting .exe files as a way to clean up your computer. This may have been misinterpreted as an instruction to delete ‘all’ .exe files which was not my intention. You should be very careful when deleting these files and only delete ones that you are sure were used to install a program. A good way to identify these files is if the filename contains the word ‘install’ or ‘installer.’ These installer .exe files are typically downloaded from the Internet, often saved to your desktop and should not be confused with the .exe files used to run programs on your computer. If you have any doubt as to whether an .exe file should be deleted or not, don’t delete it. Deleting the wrong .exe files can seriously harm your PC.

Better late than never, I suppose.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

Read more articles by Tim Lee.

  • CodeMonkeySteve

    (circa 1997) “What’s this ‘libc.so’ thing, it’s huge!” *clickity-click* “AGGGH!!!!”

    Ah, good times …

  • CodeMonkeySteve


    (circa 1997)
    “What’s this ‘libc.so’ thing, it’s huge!” *clickity-click* “AGGGH!!!!”



    Ah, good times …

  • http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/ Mike Linksvayer

    It would be ok if it said .msi rather than .exe.

    It’s unfortunate developers are still shipping executable installers.

  • http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/ Mike Linksvayer

    It would be ok if it said .msi rather than .exe.

    It’s unfortunate developers are still shipping executable installers.

  • http://www.maclawstudents.com Erik Schmidt

    A couple of weeks ago I did an end-of-the-year cleanup and got rid of a bunch of app files. It took me an hour or so to root through and delete them. Total disc savings was well under 50 megs. Then I spent an equal amount of time sifting through my iTunes library and whacked about a gig and a half of unused stuff. Most users will get more benefit and far less risk of an “oops” event by confining their pruning to the low-hanging fruit.

  • http://www.maclawstudents.com Erik Schmidt

    A couple of weeks ago I did an end-of-the-year cleanup and got rid of a bunch of app files. It took me an hour or so to root through and delete them. Total disc savings was well under 50 megs. Then I spent an equal amount of time sifting through my iTunes library and whacked about a gig and a half of unused stuff. Most users will get more benefit and far less risk of an “oops” event by confining their pruning to the low-hanging fruit.

  • http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett

    If you do a massive file deletion exercise, it’s a good idea to defrag your drive afterwards.

  • http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett

    If you do a massive file deletion exercise, it’s a good idea to defrag your drive afterwards.

  • VM

    Steps to clean your system in a recoverable way -

    1. Delete all files by moving them to an unused partition. You can use a “Deleted” folder instead of a different partition for the same purpose.
    2. Run a file system filter driver (e.g. one used by Process Monitor from SysInternals.com) that copies/restores the file if any application attempts to open it (in at least read mode), so that the Open call does not fail.
    3. Use your system aggressively for a week (or a month if you are paranoid) and see which files were never touched/restored.
    4. You don’t need these file. Clean the partition or “Deleted” folder when you need more space to perform this system tuning task again. Alternately just delete the oldest files from this list.
  • VM

    Steps to clean your system in a recoverable way -<ol>
    <li>Delete all files by moving them to an unused partition. You can use a “Deleted” folder instead of a different partition for the same purpose.
    </li><li>Run a file system filter driver (e.g. one used by Process Monitor from SysInternals.com) that copies/restores the file if any application attempts to open it (in at least read mode), so that the Open call does not fail.
    </li><li>Use your system aggressively for a week (or a month if you are paranoid) and see which files were never touched/restored.
    </li><li>You don’t need these file. Clean the partition or “Deleted” folder when you need more space to perform this system tuning task again. Alternately just delete the oldest files from this list.</li></ol>

  • DamionKutaeff

    Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity, and wish to assit as far as possible.

  • DamionKutaeff

    Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
    and wish to assit as far as possible.

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