Vintage Laptop - What Folders Can I Safely Delete?

Tojo_Ralph

A long story short..

I've bought a new laptop (pc world £289.99 )...

Daughter is getting old (this) one.

It's a hand me down of a hand me down old works laptop, so I don't have the win98se discs, to do a clean install.

That said it runs OK, and as she'll only use Word and Excel, and surf at home (Wanadoo Broadband), Its pretty much set up fine with Office 97 Pro and all the good security stuff, however I've cleaned up allsorts of programs she won't use, leaving me with folders I am unsure of.

So two questions....

a) Can I safely delete these folders?

b) Is there a good FREE utility to clean up the laptop, ie, get rid of the debris that 6 years of computing have left behind ... I have Clean disk security, Clean Center, Tweak now reg cleaner installed.

See folders I'm not sure of, but am sure are NEVER used..........

Microsoft Money
Microsoft Works 5.5
Microsoft Visual Studio
Ms Works
Netmeeting
Online Services - Folder Containing following Folders Aol, At&t, Compuserve, MSN50, Prodigy.
Plus! – Folder contains following folders, system, themes.
QMgr
Wanadoo – Folder contains following folders, help, images, Wsbar
Webpublish

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Spec below (in case it matters) courtesy of scan on Belarc website.

Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222)
400 megahertz Intel Celeron
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
128 kilobyte secondary memory cache
6.48 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
4.36 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
192 Megabytes Installed Memory (128 + 64)

walkerboh

Hi,
I've often had this problem when inheriting servers form people who have played around with them. It's time consuming but I've found the best way to work this out is this...

Create a new folder called 'to Delete' (prob best in the c: drive)
Move one of the folders you want to delete into this
have a play about for 10 mins to check to see if it all works ok (i.e programs you need to use and stuff lik einternet explorer and explorer etc)
restart the pc (read below before doing this!!!!)
When it has come back up repeat the process with the next folder

Once you have moved them all into 'To Delete' then don't delete straight away - leave for a week or so while the laptop is in use just to make sure all ok.
Once happy just delete the 'to Delete' folder

This has worked for me loads of times..

One word of warning though - from what you have written i doubt deletion of those folders will afect the operating system but DO read through the backup procedures first and make a recovery disk in case everything goes pearshaped!!

Hope this helps!

walkerboh

ps I might leave the plus directory if I were you - this is backgrounds etc for the pc and is the most closely linked to the operating system. have a look at the size of the folder (right click, then properties) and see if the recovered disk space is worth the risk!

Fran

As laptop is using Wanadoo broadband, perhaps you need to keep the Wanadoo file which includes "help"?

Tojo_Ralph

Thanks to all who posted, and also to Mr Skint.

It's been decided that pending favourable 2nd year exam results... ... A new lappy will be the daughters reward for the effort she has put in. So, in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" vain, and given that this one is effectively a stop gap, I've gone for tweaking and fiddling and have got the laptop running just fine, got a 256MB Freecom Databar, and a wee (Lidl) cordless optical mouse, and things look just grand.

Once it's served it's purpose, and I get my hands on it again, I'll go for the clean install.

Thanks again.