Windows 7 System Preparation

A.) Disabling the system restore

1.)    To Disable the system restore , Click On “Start”

 

2.)    “Right mouse” Click on “Computer”

3.)    Select “Properties” from the drop down menu

4.)    Click on the “System Protection” link on the left

5.)    Click on “Configure” located under the Protected Setting Section

6.)    Choose “Turn Off System Protection” Then select Apply and OK.

7.)    Click “YES”

8.)    You should now see that the system restore is turned Off

9.)    Click “OK” to Close the system Properties Sheet



B. ) View Hidden files and Folders


1.) To View hidden files and Folders, there are three ways to get to the screen that you need.

Double Click on the “Computer” Icon



OR – Click on the “Start button Orb” and then Double Click on the “Computer Icon”

      

OR – Right mouse Click the “Start Button Orb” and select “Open Windows Explorer”

  


2.) Click on the “Organize” button at the top left of the screen.



3.) Click the “Folder and Search Options” Option.



4.) Click on the “View” Tab                                                                                  (See Figure A)

5.) Select “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”                   (See Figure A)

6.) Un-Check “Hide extensions for known file types”                             (See Figure A)

7.) Un-Check “Hide Protected Operating system files(recommended)” (See Figure A and B) You will see a message appear as shown in (Figure B) . Click “Yes” to the warning message that appears in Figure B


Figure A



Figure B



8.) Click “OK”  

c.)Create a Folder on your Desktop Called “Cleaners”


1.) Close All/Any open Applications/Programs

2.) “Right Mouse” Click anywhere on your desktop screen where there are no Icons

3.) Select “New” then Select “Folder”



4.) Change the name of the newly created folder from “New Folder” to “Cleaners”

    

5.) The “Cleaners” folder should now be used to store any Cleaning or Scanning files that you download

d.) Deleting temporary files from the PC

To delete temporary files from the PC

These next two tools that are screen captured for you are “ATF Cleaner” written by the folks at Atribune.org and “Temporary File Cleaner” written by the folks at addpcs.com. The people at both of these sites have taken the time to write some very nice pieces of software that are free for personal use and they did a wonderful job. If you find that these tools are helpful to you, I highly recommend that you click on the DONATE button when visiting their website.

To Download “ATF Cleaner” go to http://www.atribune.org or ATF-Cleaner

To Download “Temporary File Cleaner” go to http://addpcs.com or TempFileCleaner

When you clean the temporary files it is not necessary to use Both the ATF and the Temporary File Cleaner. Running either of these tools should be sufficient. I usually run both. In addition, I have added the file locations of the folder that contain the files that should get removed in the manually removing Files section. Lastly, Microsoft has a built-in file cleaner utility called Disk Cleanup, instruction on how to use that are in the Disk Cleanup section.

ATF Cleaner

Download ATF-Cleaner

According to the author of ATF Cleaner, ATF Cleaner is not supported for Windows 7 Operating Systems. Although, ATF Cleaner was not specifically written for Window 7, I find that ATF Cleaner works well enough to included it in the documentation.

1.) Double Click on “ATF-Cleaner.exe”



2.) Click “Run”




3.) Click the Check box Next to “Select All”, All of the boxes should now have a check mark in them.



4.) Click “Empty Selected” This may take anywhere from two minutes to an hour depending on how many files that ATF needs to delete.



5.) When, ATF Cleaner is done you will see a screen appear that says Done Cleaning, Click “OK”

  

6.) Repeat Steps 4 and 5, Until you get “No files were removed”, Then Click “OK” and then Click “Exit”

    

E.)  TFC - Temporary File Cleaner

Download TempFileCleaner

1.) Double Click the “TempfileCleaner.exe”



2.) Click on the “Advanced” Tab and select Windows Debug, Windows Prefetch, and System Restore Data.




3.) Click on the “Options Tab” and then Select “Clean” This should take anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 minutes



4.) When Complete, The text in the White area of the screen will stop scrolling, Click on the “X” to close out of Temp File Cleaner

 

4.) ********************** Special Note **********************  If you get an error message that reads “This Application requires a Java Runtime Environment 1.6.0”

Then go to http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp download the latest Update and install it.



Manually removing Temporary Files

You will only need to manually remove the temporary files if you have not used the automated cleaners listed above. If you are uncomfortable with manually deleting the temporary files please use the tools above.

The file locations of temporary files are scattered thru-out multiple locations on a windows 7 PC. If you decide that you want to remove the files manually you will need to be sure you are removing the correct files from the correct location. If you remove or delete the wrong files you could make your system inoperable. In order for you to see all of the hidden temporary files it is important that you have followed the View hidden system files and Folders steps as mentioned earlier. In addition you may need to enable the hidden, disabled,  Administrator account on your PC.  If you need to enable the administrator account, go to the Enable Administrator Account Section.

********************  Special Note ******************

%username% listed in the file paths below are a “wildcard” this means the temporary files that need to be deleted, exist, in each User Profile with-in the user directory. The deletion of the temporary files will need to occur in each user directory.

***************************************************
The files that can be deleted are all of the files with-in the folder listed below. Do not delete the folder, instead you will need to delete the files with-in the folder.

c:\Temp\*.*
c:\$RECYCLE.BIN \*.*
c:\windows\Prefetch\*.*
c:\windows\system32\wbem\Logs\*.*
c:\windows\Debug\*.*
c:\windows\Security\Logs\*.*
c:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp\*.*
c:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\*.*
c:\users\%username%\Recent\*.*
c:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\history\*.*
c:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\burn\*.*
c:\users\%username%\Cookies\*.*


Using Microsoft Disk Cleanup

1.) Create a “New Shortcut” on the Desktop by clicking the “right mouse” button anywhere there is a blank space or no icons, Then from the drop down menu Click “New” and the select “Shortcut”



2.) In the “Type the location of Item” field type C:\Windows\System32\cleanmgr.exe and then Click “Next”




3.) In the “Type a name for this shortcut” field type in Disk Cleanup



4.) Click “Finish”



5.) You will now have a new icon on your desktop that the reads Disk Cleanup. Open Disk Cleanup



6.) Place a “checkmark” in each box and the Select “OK




7.) On the next Disk Cleanup window Click “Delete Files” This may take a few minutes.



8.) You will now see a progress bar, When Disk Cleanup is done the window will close.