XP has crashed!

    Mustang says.... <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> I was cleaning out my program files folder of trash (old program residue) last night to free up some space and I guess I must have deleted something in my haste that I shouldn´t have, although I went no where near any system files <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> If I had a nickel for everytime I´ve heard that....You don´t have to be anywhere near system files when deleting them to have an adverse impact on the OS. That is why you should never delete, you should uninstall. Rob &quot;Stinger&quot; Lordier Moderator/Comp Tech <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/´ Target=_Blank> Lancers Reactor </a> Creator <A href=´http://gamesdomain.telepac.pt/games/private.html´ Target=_Blank> Privateer FAQ </a> Competition doesn´t create character, it <b> REVEALS </b> it! <img src=´http://www.phoenix0.com/phpBB/…/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif ´>

    No I was talking about the leftover folders after uninstalling the program. -------------------------- <img src=´http://stewie.thehellhole.com/art/img/Stewie.GIF ´>Stewie : &quot;You know Mother, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get, your life however is more like a box of active grenades! Now I offer you one last chance for deliverance- return my mind control device, or be destroyed.&quot;

    MD says... <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> if i uninstall games of small progs, i remove the leftover folder and stuff, just to free up more space <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> If you have a folder that is empty, it takes up a total of ZERO kilobits of space. Now if you´re deleting a folder that is the remenances of a program that you did in fact uninstall the program properly, any leftover files that might happen to reside in said folder were not uninstalled for a darn good reason. I have never in all my years of tinkering with computers seen any &quot;leftover&quot; files add up to much size at all that would be worth the trouble of even considering deleting them. They are usually either .dll files that normally less than 20 kbs in size or they are in fact &quot;shared&quot; files that I would have a death wish on my computer if I even considered deleting them. Bottom line, uninstall EVERYTHING if taking a program off the computer each and every single time. If it doesn´t get rid of all the files, let them alone and search elsewhere to find files that could be taking up hdd space. Here´s two hints that are usually overlooked. One, ANY file that has the .tmp extention can be deleted (yes that means right click on them and send them to the recycle bin). Two and files that reside in the &quot;temporary Internet Files&quot; folder can be deleted. Do NOT however delete the Tempoprary Internetn File folder or the Temp file folder...you need them. Pull up a chair, it´s time for a little story... I once was involved in a complete computer rebuild. I had just had my computer crash on me and it was due to a single file showing up in my IOSUBSYS folder deep in Windows (longer story I will not get into). Now I had been using this computer surfing along just fine for 12 months before the crash (12 months and 2 days as it turned out...two days after my frickin´ warranty had run out and that ended up costing me time with a tech rep on the phone). Anyway, I was instructed step by step to do certain things with my computer. One of which was to delete the Temporary Internet File (TIF) folder from my DOS prompt. It ended up taking me a total of 25 minutes to delete all the files in the folder. Next step was to delete my Windows folder and it took 15 minutes. That means there were an enormous amount of ifles in my TIF folder, more that were even in my Windows folder. That was a real eyeopening experience for me and should be for you all as well. Maintainance of a computer does not just include updating drivers and defraging computers...there are more manual things needed to be done and if not done, you´re only asking for trouble. I delete all file out of my TIF at least every other month and that alone keep my surfing faster and cleans up a heck of a lot of hdd space to boot. (I´m assukming everyone knows why doing this TIF purge speeds up surfing...right?) Rob &quot;Stinger&quot; Lordier Moderator/Comp Tech <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/´ Target=_Blank> Lancers Reactor </a> Creator <A href=´http://gamesdomain.telepac.pt/games/private.html´ Target=_Blank> Privateer FAQ </a> Competition doesn´t create character, it <b> REVEALS </b> it! <img src=´http://www.phoenix0.com/phpBB/…/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif ´>

    Yep I do. Just on another note (FYI), is that you can dual boot XP with Linux using Lilo in the master boot record (meaning you get prompted for which OS you would like to use, instead of having to use a boot disk to access Linux in the case of NT). But you have to have the the XP partition formatted in FAT32, same procedure as any Win 9x system. Just thought some of you would like to know. -------------------------- <img src=´http://stewie.thehellhole.com/art/img/Stewie.GIF ´>Stewie : &quot;You know Mother, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get, your life however is more like a box of active grenades! Now I offer you one last chance for deliverance- return my mind control device, or be destroyed.&quot;

    Even if empty folder do take up virtually 0 HD space, it i still more convenient and jsut plain feels better if u have it off ur comp. A lot less cluttered. Also, i have had absolutely no problems what so ever after deleting left over program files. Usually, if i try to uninstall/delete it it will give me a &quot;shared file. do u wanna remove&quot; message, and i usually so no and leave it at that. If i dont get that msg, its bye bye file. <img src=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/images/news/barkeeper.gif ´> - A Message From Your Friendly Neighbourhood ElectricBrain

    Those 2 are perfect examples of software uninstall programs that are weeaaak. I use a program called (ironically) Uninstaller and it ALWAYS deleted every single file associated with the said programs...except the ones that are shared of course. Rob &quot;Stinger&quot; Lordier Moderator/Comp Tech <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/´ Target=_Blank> Lancers Reactor </a> Creator <A href=´http://gamesdomain.telepac.pt/games/private.html´ Target=_Blank> Privateer FAQ </a> Competition doesn´t create character, it <b> REVEALS </b> it! <img src=´http://www.phoenix0.com/phpBB/…/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif ´>

    I used to use Cybermedia program called UnInstaller and it worked great (other than it was made by McAfee). Now a days I use Nortons <A href=´http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utilities98/uninstallers/uninstall01.html´ Target=_Blank> CleanSweep </a> and it works wonders. Not as labor intensive as CyberMedias and since I have Norton Anti-Virus, no real or imagined conflicts. Rob &quot;Stinger&quot; Lordier Moderator/Comp Tech <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/´ Target=_Blank> Lancers Reactor </a> Creator <A href=´http://gamesdomain.telepac.pt/games/private.html´ Target=_Blank> Privateer FAQ </a> Competition doesn´t create character, it <b> REVEALS </b> it! <img src=´http://www.phoenix0.com/phpBB/…/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif ´>

    EB, if you have a stand alone uninstalling program, you wouldn´t need to go back in and delete things left off from a piece of software´s built in uninstaller. That´s called smart monitoring. To each their own, we´re splittin´ hairs. Rob &quot;Stinger&quot; Lordier Moderator/Comp Tech <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/´ Target=_Blank> Lancers Reactor </a> Creator <A href=´http://gamesdomain.telepac.pt/games/private.html´ Target=_Blank> Privateer FAQ </a> Competition doesn´t create character, it <b> REVEALS </b> it! <img src=´http://www.phoenix0.com/phpBB/…/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif ´> Edited by - Stinger on 10/23/2001 1:29:04 AM

    Either way that was the first time anything like that has happened to me and im usually a mad deleter (having lived on 8 gig for the past 5 years). And I needed to reformat my drive back to FAT32 anyway. -------------------------- <img src=´http://stewie.thehellhole.com/art/img/Stewie.GIF ´>Stewie : &quot;You know Mother, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get, your life however is more like a box of active grenades! Now I offer you one last chance for deliverance- return my mind control device, or be destroyed.&quot;