I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together. Cool.
Ed
*From:* Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
*Date:* Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can
be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the _Shift_ and _Delete_ keys
together.
Cool.
Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:00 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together.
Cool.
Ed
Yes, the Shift key also works for the "delete" choice in the menu.
You move your mouse away from the general area, press Shift,
then open the menu and select Delete. And that should avoid all the
"shifting and calculating", saving about half the time.
I was deleting on the other machine, and we hit a new low today,
only able to delete 300 files a second. When you have 200,000 files
to delete, that is a pretty miserable level of performance. I'd
be better off booting Linux and deleting the files there.
The delete command in Command Prompt, is likely to do better
than that, because no animation is required for that method.
Paul
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Not even Edge comes close to that number on my system
(:-
Ed
In article <vugf3f$df6v$1@dont-email.me>, ed@somewhere.in.the.uk (Ed Cryer) wrote:
*From:* Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
*Date:* Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can
be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the _Shift_ and _Delete_ keys
together.
Cool.
I've been using it since at least W95 here, but don't get into the
habit of doing it without thinking! That can be somewhat disastrous!
:^)
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the ?Shift? and ?Delete? keys together.
Cool.
Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:39 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:00 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way. >>>>> Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together.
Cool.
Ed
Yes, the Shift key also works for the "delete" choice in the menu.
You move your mouse away from the general area, press Shift,
then open the menu and select Delete. And that should avoid all the
"shifting and calculating", saving about half the time.
I was deleting on the other machine, and we hit a new low today,
only able to delete 300 files a second. When you have 200,000 files
to delete, that is a pretty miserable level of performance. I'd
be better off booting Linux and deleting the files there.
The delete command in Command Prompt, is likely to do better
than that, because no animation is required for that method.
Paul
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Not even Edge comes close to that number on my system
(:-
Ed
Win10 C:\Windows\servicing\LCU
That can have 200,000 files in it, and it's a waste
of SearchIndexer munching time, to leave that there.
That can be deleted (contents of LCU Last Cumulative Update).
It's up to you to decide whether that's a good tradeoff or not
(in case the system needs to roll back the Patch Tuesday Cumulative).
It's a waste of time defragmenting that. It's a waste of
time for Agent Ransack to search through there. It's a waste
of time letting the SearchIndexer process it. Etc.
Win11 doesn't have an LCU.
Paul
Jeez, yes. That's new to me, but mine contains 2 1/4GB* of stuff.
Can I safely delete it?
Ed
* I'm favouring pre-decimal terminology. This is in support of paper money which is disappearing in the UK so rapidly in favour of plastic cards that it'll probably be obsolete in a few years.
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together. Cool.
Ed
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:39 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Win10 C:\Windows\servicing\LCU
That can have 200,000 files in it, and it's a waste
of SearchIndexer munching time, to leave that there.
That can be deleted (contents of LCU Last Cumulative Update).
It's up to you to decide whether that's a good tradeoff or not
(in case the system needs to roll back the Patch Tuesday Cumulative).
It's a waste of time defragmenting that. It's a waste of
time for Agent Ransack to search through there. It's a waste
of time letting the SearchIndexer process it. Etc.
I leave last 30 days in the temp folders.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 14:46:09 -0400, Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:39 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Win10 C:\Windows\servicing\LCU
That can have 200,000 files in it, and it's a waste
of SearchIndexer munching time, to leave that there.
C:\Windows\servicing\LCU> *dir /a /s /u2
Volume in drive C is OS Serial number is 4e90:7197
Total for: C:\Windows\servicing\LCU\*
3,207,063,704 bytes in 279,787 files and 331,361 dirs
Yikes!
That can be deleted (contents of LCU Last Cumulative Update).
It's up to you to decide whether that's a good tradeoff or not
(in case the system needs to roll back the Patch Tuesday Cumulative).
Hmm ... Microsoft's track record lately hasn't exactly been stellar.
And I didn't get updates this week till yesterday. I think I'll wait
till Sunday or Monday before deleting.
Unless ... the first-level subdirectories under LCU are dated
2025-03-26, 2025-04-09, and 2025-04-23. Is it safe to delete older
ones and leave only the most recent one in place?
It's a waste of time defragmenting that. It's a waste of
time for Agent Ransack to search through there. It's a waste
of time letting the SearchIndexer process it. Etc.
And it's a waste of time having Macrium Reflect back it up.
Although, my HIBERFIL.SYS is 6 GB, and that gets backed up. To
control that, as far as I know, I'd have to change my C: image backup
to a file and folder backup. Goodness knows what that would do to the
backup of the small recovery partitions that are automatically part
of the C: image backup.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100, Ed Cryer wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be
holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the ?Shift? and ?Delete? keys together.
Cool.
This is a great illustration of why it's nice to post these little
hacks. I thought everybody knew about Shift+Del, but I was wrong.
Unless you're doing really massive deletes, another option is to
right-click Recycle Bin and open Properties. Uncheck (untick)
"Display delete confirmation dialog". Then things you delete with the
plain Del key or Delete menu selection will be deleted without a
confirmation prompt, but to the Recycle Bin so if you make an oops
you can easily recover.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 16:13:04 -0400, Zaidy036 wrote:
I leave last 30 days in the temp folders.
Out of curiosity, why? I delete anything that doesn't have today's
date, and I've never had a problem related to that.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 16:13:04 -0400, Zaidy036 wrote:If it is in a Temp folder it can be deleted. If needed the program that manage the file will recreated it.
I leave last 30 days in the temp folders.
Out of curiosity, why? I delete anything that doesn't have today's
date, and I've never had a problem related to that.
ill
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be >holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the Shift and Delete keys together.
Cool.
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
On 4/25/2025 2:46 PM, Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:39 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:I routinely use the Empty Recycle bin button to purge the deleted items. I also routinely ran Disk Clean from the Property of the Disk on my old computer. I do the same to all programs that have that function.
Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:00 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way. >>>>> Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together.
Cool.
Ed
Yes, the Shift key also works for the "delete" choice in the menu.
You move your mouse away from the general area, press Shift,
then open the menu and select Delete. And that should avoid all the
"shifting and calculating", saving about half the time.
I was deleting on the other machine, and we hit a new low today,
only able to delete 300 files a second. When you have 200,000 files
to delete, that is a pretty miserable level of performance. I'd
be better off booting Linux and deleting the files there.
The delete command in Command Prompt, is likely to do better
than that, because no animation is required for that method.
Paul
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Not even Edge comes close to that number on my system
(:-
Ed
Win10 C:\Windows\servicing\LCU
That can have 200,000 files in it, and it's a waste
of SearchIndexer munching time, to leave that there.
That can be deleted (contents of LCU Last Cumulative Update).
It's up to you to decide whether that's a good tradeoff or not
(in case the system needs to roll back the Patch Tuesday Cumulative).
It's a waste of time defragmenting that. It's a waste of
time for Agent Ransack to search through there. It's a waste
of time letting the SearchIndexer process it. Etc.
Win11 doesn't have an LCU.
Paul
I also routinely delete the files in the \windows\temp folder. If it is in use you can not delete it.
However I do not see disk clean on my new HP computer with a TB ssd(?) drive.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>ther.
wrote:
=20
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be=20 >holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its=20 >Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the =93Shift=94 and =93Delete=94 keys toge=
Reckon so (past W3.1 user)Cool.=20
That's been available since at least XP, and I'm too lazy to fire up a
Win9x VM to remind myself if it's been there from the beginning.
=20
I think there's a name for the phenomenon where, when you know
something, you assume everyone knows it, and when you don't, you assume
that others also don't. I've been caught out on that before.
=20
*From:* Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
*Date:* 25 Apr 2025 18:20:11 GMT
John K.Eason <john@jeasonnospam.cix.co.uk> wrote:
In article <vugf3f$df6v$1@dont-email.me>, ed@somewhere.in.the.uk
(Ed Cryer) wrote:
*From:* Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
*Date:* Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. Theycan > be holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin
in its > Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesomeway.
Select files to delete, press the _Shift_ and _Delete_ keys
together.
Cool.
I've been using it since at least W95 here, but don't get into the
habit of doing it without thinking! That can be somewhat
disastrous!
:^)
Well, as long as you don't disable the "Are you sure ..." popup,
you'll be fine. That is, unless you press the 'enter' key, because
'Yes'
is the default! :-)
On 4/25/2025 11:50 PM, Paul wrote:[...]
On Fri, 4/25/2025 7:24 PM, knuttle wrote:
I routinely use the Empty Recycle bin button to purge the deleted
items. I also routinely ran Disk Clean from the Property of the
Disk on my old computer. I do the same to all programs that have
that function.
I also routinely delete the files in the \windows\temp folder. If
it is in use you can not delete it.
However I do not see disk clean on my new HP computer with a TB
ssd(?) drive.
Maybe two of the machines are Win10, one machine is Win11 ?
[Picture] Win11 "Details" button takes you to a separate Cleaning area
https://i.postimg.cc/vm05HGmC/Properties-Disk-Cleanup.gif
PaulWhen I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not
available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Frank Slootweg wrote:
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not
available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Just type 'clean' in the Search box, that will list Disk Clean-up as
one of the first items. Or type cleanmgr.exe in the Run box.
That is if you actually mean 'Disk Clean-up' [1] instead of "Disk Clean".
[1] Spelling might differ for US/non-UK English.
Don't play with him, Frank. Be a better man.
What he wants is the former.
"Program" or "programme".
We in the UK have bowed to American simplified spelling on this.
The former is used in all cases of computer technology; but we stick to
the latter for all else, things like theatre programme, programme of
events etc.
knuttle wrote:
I also discovered there is something call Storage Sense. As I understand it it is supposes to do the same functions as Disk Clean automatically
on a user control schedule.
No. Don't turn on Storage Sense. It's somebody else's opinion of what
you want or don't want to save; somebody with a seat in the MS offices.
Use your own discretion; and use other means to keep your computer tidy.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be
holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys together.
Cool.
That's been available since at least XP, and I'm too lazy to fire up a
Win9x VM to remind myself if it's been there from the beginning.
I think there's a name for the phenomenon where, when you know
something, you assume everyone knows it, and when you don't, you assume
that others also don't. I've been caught out on that before.
[Picture] Win11 "Details" button takes you to a separate Cleaning area >>
https://i.postimg.cc/vm05HGmC/Properties-Disk-Cleanup.gif
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 9:29 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:00:17 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
wrote:
I regularly empty folders of waste; Temp folders usually. They can be
holding hundreds of files, so I bypass the Recycle Bin in its
Properties; then switch back afterwards.
Until today, that is. I've found a quicker and less troublesome way.
Select files to delete, press the “Shift” and “Delete” keys
together.
Cool.
That's been available since at least XP, and I'm too lazy to fire up a
Win9x VM to remind myself if it's been there from the beginning.
I think there's a name for the phenomenon where, when you know
something, you assume everyone knows it, and when you don't, you assume
that others also don't. I've been caught out on that before.
Some people keep their good output files in the Trash Bin,
and it's almost impossible to convince them not to do that :-)
I'm sure there's a name for this behavior too :-)
That is one of the consequences of un-structured learning.
"Discovery" as a concept, has a few issues when it comes
to correct logical conclusions. Some people assume the
most important "container" on the desktop, is where you store
your good output. Having a bin where actual trash goes,
that's not nearly as important to them. When they spot a
container, any container, that's where the file goes.
it doesn't matter what is printed on the side of the container.
I had a colleague at work who came over to my desk and
said "Paul, my email is awfully slow". So I check, and he
has a ton of deleted files in the Inbox, and they've never
been compacted to get rid of them. Apparently he had never
heard of the concept, how email deletion was a two-step,
and deleting an item didn't actually delete it, and you
had to compact the box to tidy it up. While the company had
an "email training course", you'd be laughed out of the
place if someone said "Oh, Alphonse is taking the email
course this week". That's one of the reasons some basics
courses, never got taken.
This concept, of insulating users, has been around for a
long time, and I believe it may have Unix roots as much
as anything. Microsoft made it graphical. Whereas the
two-step concept existed as a "command line thing". We
were using an alias for "rm" that consisted of "mv" and
some operands. And then the main complaint about putting
that by default in peoples profiles (noob profiles), is
the individuals didn't know where the "actual storage" was.
Some had never managed to empty the "real trash".
"Taz, my homedir is full. I think it's my trash.
Do you know where my trash is ?" That would be a situation
which would provide a teaching moment.
I guess this is why we keep a copy of Recuva handy,
and warn users to "stop making changes to the disk if
you delete something for real, by accident". There's more
to the story than knowing how the Shift key can help you.
You should also hear how delete, is a one-byte flag that
can be reversed, but it must be reversed promptly before
the file system overwrites your valuable document remnants.
(Shut down immediately. Dial out and ask for help using
your second computer.) The green bullets in Recuva show
you items that can be recovered.
Paul
Some friends of mine recently called me in. Their iPhone had suddenly
lost all its contacts. I went in and found that they never rebooted,
there were hundreds of versions of Safari open, lots of updates left
undone (including a major OS update), emails in the inbox unread over a thousand, and other infractures that would make anyone with even a minor degree of computer-savvy sigh.
It's for such people that the OS-vendors produce their prison-cell like OSes; trying to help them, I suppose, but giving the rest of us
something that resembles Disneyland.
Apple are the worst culprits in this dumbing-down cycle; but MS are
catching up.
BTW, I had one hell of a time trying to explain two-factor
authentication to them. I just couldn't reach down to the very lowest
rungs of the IT-ladder where they seemed to be at home.
I feel the greatest empathy with them. When all the suppliers of food, power, goods and no-goods are insisting on online communication only, they're ripe for ripping off by the bandits.
Ed
On Fri, 4/25/2025 4:13 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 14:46:09 -0400, Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 1:39 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
What the dickens were you doing having 200,000 files to delete?
Win10 C:\Windows\servicing\LCU
That can have 200,000 files in it, and it's a waste
of SearchIndexer munching time, to leave that there.
C:\Windows\servicing\LCU> *dir /a /s /u2
Volume in drive C is OS Serial number is 4e90:7197
Total for: C:\Windows\servicing\LCU\*
3,207,063,704 bytes in 279,787 files and 331,361 dirs
Yikes!
That can be deleted (contents of LCU Last Cumulative Update).
It's up to you to decide whether that's a good tradeoff or not
(in case the system needs to roll back the Patch Tuesday Cumulative).
Hmm ... Microsoft's track record lately hasn't exactly been stellar.
And I didn't get updates this week till yesterday. I think I'll wait
till Sunday or Monday before deleting.
Unless ... the first-level subdirectories under LCU are dated
2025-03-26, 2025-04-09, and 2025-04-23. Is it safe to delete older
ones and leave only the most recent one in place?
It's a waste of time defragmenting that. It's a waste of
time for Agent Ransack to search through there. It's a waste
of time letting the SearchIndexer process it. Etc.
And it's a waste of time having Macrium Reflect back it up.
Although, my HIBERFIL.SYS is 6 GB, and that gets backed up. To
control that, as far as I know, I'd have to change my C: image backup
to a file and folder backup. Goodness knows what that would do to the backup of the small recovery partitions that are automatically part
of the C: image backup.
The "proper" cleaning procedure is apparently DISM and startcomponentcleanup or something like that. That should remove all of them except two for April, as a guess.
"Run this in an elevated command prompt.
It will remove all but the last (newest) folder in the LCU folder.
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
"
I suppose that ensures that the maintenance system, knows the backup
items have been removed. Me yanking them away, maybe it never checks
that they are still present.
For the hiberfile
powercfg /h off
and then test your backup. It should be gone then.
And for pagefile, I use Start : Run : sysdm.cpl and adjust
the size of pagefile to be fixed (non-expandable) at 1024MB.
Sysdm.cpl looks like it did, in WinXP or so.
Removing the hiberfile can affect some features, such as
what happens when the system crashes and you really wanted
a complete image of the entire memory (that is not a default behavior
and has to be set up). It is used for hibernation.
It might even be used for Fast Start (which I don't use).
Some of my "habits", may not be appropriate for others, because
of my variations on "paving policies", when I choose to pave
something to fix it :-)
Frank Slootweg wrote:
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not
available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Just type 'clean' in the Search box, that will list Disk Clean-up as
one of the first items. Or type cleanmgr.exe in the Run box.
On Sat, 4/26/2025 8:55 AM, knuttle wrote:
[Picture] Win11 "Details" button takes you to a separate Cleaning area >>>
https://i.postimg.cc/vm05HGmC/Properties-Disk-Cleanup.gif
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not available on my Windows 11 laptop.
I created an account which did not belong to Administrator group, and
the Details button was still there in the C: Properties dialog. And
that was on a Win11 Home installation (Disk #33).
I tried a Google, but I'm not getting any sort of match on
a GPEdit that could remove it.
Paul
On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 19:19:21 +0100, Ed Cryer wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not
available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Just type 'clean' in the Search box, that will list Disk Clean-up as
one of the first items. Or type cleanmgr.exe in the Run box.
The ".exe" isn't needed: just cleanmgr brings it up.
On Sat, 4/26/2025 6:07 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 19:19:21 +0100, Ed Cryer wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:
When I access the C: (Primary Drive) Properties that option is not
available on my Windows 11 laptop.
Just type 'clean' in the Search box, that will list Disk Clean-up as >>> one of the first items. Or type cleanmgr.exe in the Run box.
The ".exe" isn't needed: just cleanmgr brings it up.
That's a little syntactic sugar, intended to calm the nerves.
It's to help the user feel they're in control.
| Sysop: | Tetrazocine |
|---|---|
| Location: | Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
| Users: | 8 |
| Nodes: | 8 (0 / 8) |
| Uptime: | 107:00:03 |
| Calls: | 161 |
| Files: | 21,502 |
| Messages: | 78,633 |
