Time for a spring clean? When it comes to Windows (the computer version, at least), less is more, according to experts. — dpa
Installed programs under Windows tend to get bigger and bigger over time. That's nothing to worry about, unless you get a warning message from the operating system, according to experts.
Only then should you embark on a disk cleanup, says the German tech magazine c't.
Click on the Windows start button in the lower left corner and enter the term "Disk cleanup" until the cleaning tool of the same name shows up.
Open it, check the boxes in front of whichever drives you want to clean up, and then confirm by clicking on "Ok".
After this, you may also want to check your pictures, videos, music and games for duplicates and stuff that you no longer need.
You should also take warning messages seriously, because if you are taking up too much disk space, Windows will switch off System Restore and stop downloading updates, leaving your system vulnerable to security issues.
Also, if your disk is full, at some point you won't be able to start certain programs, while others will crash. In the end, you may even end up losing data.
However, there's no need for regular maintenance, the experts say – it's a myth that deleting data on a regular basis makes Windows faster.
Claims to the contrary are likely to simply be scaremongering on the part of developers of cleaning software.
If you clean Windows regularly, you're more likely to risk deleting files you actually need, the experts say. — dpa
