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COMPUTER BITS BY JASON COLE Norton Utilities V2 For Win95; Pt.3 No matter how big your hard disc drive is, it’s all too easy for it to become cluttered with obsolete or duplicate files. This is where Norton’s “Space Wizard” utility comes in handy. It goes through the drive and searches for files that can be safely deleted. When the Space Wizard utility is started, it asks you to choose between an Express deletion process or a Comprehensive deletion pro­ cess – see Fig.1. We will concentrate on the Comprehensive process here, because the Express method is in fact just a scaled down version. In the Express process, you are asked just a few questions such as “Do you want to empty the Recycle Bin now?” You are also asked to select which file types you want deleted. Space Wizard looks through the hard drive and also locates other files that it believes can be deleted, such as *.tmp files and any files inside a “Temp” direc­tory. As with all of Norton’s programs, you are taken systemati­cally through the process. However, no matter how advanced this program is, there are some things to watch out for. For ex­ ample, I have a Root Directory called Fig.1: Space Wizard offers two methods of creating disc space: Express and Comprehensive. The latter method will recover much more disc space. 80  Silicon Chip “Temp”. At first this directory was in fact just a temporary one, which held files that I could delete when required. However, I now use this directory to hold quite a few files that I want to keep. As you might expect, Norton’s Space Wizard automatically marks all the files in this folder for deletion. Initially, I got around this by manually deselecting the files I wanted to keep but this took quite some time as there was lots of files. So, if you make a habit of using the Temp directory to hold files that you might want to keep, then you have a couple of choices: (1) Temporarily change the name of the directory before running Space Wizard; or (2) Permanently change the name of the directory to something else and then create a new Temp directory. Note that you must create a new Temp Fig.2: Space Wizard selects all files which it regards as temporary but you have the option of deselecting any files you want to keep. Fig.3: Space Wizard also displays a list of “commonly discardable files”. These are not automatically selected for deletion; you choose the files to be discarded. directory because some programs rely on its presence in order to function correctly. The comprehensive method The Comprehensive method does much more than the Express method when it comes to recovering space on your hard disc drive. It includes all the functions already described for the Express method and, in addition, it searches the entire hard disc drive for infrequently used files, duplicate files and “commonly discardable files and folders”. Let’s take a closer look at what it offers. The operational procedure is quite Fig.4: Space Wizard can track down files which have not been used for a nominated period of time. Once again, you tick the files that you want to delete. straightforward. After starting Space Wizard, you choose the Comprehen­ sive method, press Next and then select which hard drive you want to find room on. Space Wizard then scans the hard disc drive and comes back with a series of questions. The first question is: Do you want to empty the recycle bin? Select yes so that it can delete the bin contents. Space Wizard will then select files which are generally temporary; eg, *.tmp and any files located in Temp folders (Fig.2). It is a good idea to check through these and deselect any files that you want to keep. Next, you are shown a listing of Fig.5: want to track down files larger than a certain size? No problem – Space Wizard can display all files larger than a nominated value between 1Kb and 999Mb. commonly discardable files (Fig.3). These are not selected for deletion but can be – the choice is yours. Many people will have files on their hard disc drive which haven’t been used for months, if not years. These files remain there mainly because they have been forgotten about but Space Wizard can track them down. All you have to do is choose the period of time since the files were accessed (from one day to 999 years). You then tick the files that you want to delete (Fig.4). What about large files? In this case, Space Wizard searches the drive for files larger than a nominated value between 1Kb and 999Mb and presents Fig.6: Space Wizard can locate files that have the same size, time and date. These are all checked using a binary comparison method to make sure they are identical. March 1998  81 Fig.8 (above): all other applications should be shut down before running Space Wizard to avoid error messages like the one shown above. Fig.7 (left): as a final step, Space Wizard displays all the files that have been selected for deletion. You then have a choice of actually deleting files, compressing selected files and storing them as a “zip” file, or moving certain files to a new location. you with a list, as shown in Fig.5. If you now click on the Allocated tab, the files will be sorted in size order, either from smallest to largest or vice versa. Another possibility is duplicate files. To track these down, Space Wiz­ ard goes through the hard drive and locates files that have the same size, time and date. These files are then checked using a binary comparison method to make sure that they are identical, even though their names may be different (Fig.6). Be careful what you delete here. A command.com file is stored in both the Windows directory and the root directory and both are used. Do not delete any files that you are unsure about. The final step The final step is crucial. Space Wizard displays all the files that have been selected for deletion and this will be your last chance to keep any wanted files. However, if you are unsure as to whether or not you can live without some of these files, you can compress them and store them as a “zip” file in a desig­nated location on the hard drive. That way, if you find that you actually needed a file, you can uncompress it. Save Network Hassles With Quick Log-On Do you have two or more computers on a small Win95 local area network with resources shared back and forth between them? If so, this can create problems during boot-up because one computer cannot connect to the resources shared on another computer until that computer has been switched on. If you do try to map the drives on a computer that is switched off, you will get an error message. However, depending on the setup, this may be unavoidable, because it is impossible to boot all the machines simultaneously. Fortunately, the way around the problem is quite simple. Here’s what to do: double click the Network icon in the Control Panel, then choose Client For Microsoft Networks from the list of installed components and click the Properties button. This brings up the dialog box shown at right. Now all you have to do is choose Quick Logon from the Network Logon Options list. From now on, Windows will simply log you onto the network when you boot but won’t try to reconnect the drives until you use them. 82  Silicon Chip For the remaining files, just select them and click the Delete button and they will be gone (Fig.7). Another option is to move all the files to a new location, so that you can easily delete them later on if they are not needed. By the way, while I was writing this article, I ran Space Wizard at the same time. When Space Wizard performed its first scan, it came up with the error message shown in Fig.8. This was because that particular file was in use by Word. It is therefore a good idea to shut down all other applications before running Space Wizard, to avoid SC similar messages.