How to Clean out Unwanted Files Hidden on Your Hard Drive

In the Named box, enter file types you'd like to remove. For example, if you want to remove all MP3 music files, you would enter *.MP3. This will locate all files that have the MP3 file extension. (Files in Windows computers are named filename.ext - where filename is the name of the file and .ext; can be .jpg, .mp3, .txt, or some other three letter extension which indicates the kind of file it is.)

Once you have entered this, click Find Now. The system will search, and then list all the files with those extensions. (See picture.)

In Windows XP:

Click Start > Search > (For) Files and Folders. On the left of the box that appears, choose one of three options -- Pictures, Music, and Video, or Documents (word processing, spreadsheet, etc.), or All files and folders. (See picture).

These options help you narrow the kind of file you are looking for. Let's pick All files and folders.

Under All or part of the file name type *.tmp to find all temporary files. Then click Search and the system will find all those files and list them on your screen. (See picture)

No matter which version of Windows you use, the files to look for include .DOC files which are Microsoft Word files, .XLS files which are Microsoft Excel files, .GIF and .JPG files which are images, .MPG which are movies (.AVI and .MOV are also movie files), .WMA and .WAV files (Windows audio files), .BMP files (Windows bitmap image files), or *.ZIP files which are bunches of files all glommed together and compressed smaller in one single archive file (often used to transport a groups of files related to a program).

You can then look through them. Delete the ones you want by clicking on each entry and hitting your keyboard's Delete key.

In Windows 95/98/ME:

If you want to further filter the files the system finds, you could click on the Date tab and specify the age of the files for it to find.

In Windows XP:

Explore the other options on the left side of the search box. You can search by limiting the date, file size, or other options.(See picture.)

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