Download/HomepageAll of us who use computers and purchase and
install programs, and in particular, those who travel the
Internet downloading and installing programs, we all have one
thing in common. Our hard drive space shrinks faster than ice
cream on a hot day, and we all end up with literally thousands of
files on our hard drive. Now in our heart of hearts we know that
each and every file just can't possibly be required, and we may
even have an suspicion that there are more than one instance of a
given file on our system. So what do we do to ferret out the
excess baggage we are carrying? My suggestion is to turn to Clone
Master.
This program really opened my eyes to a number of issues. First,
I had no idea I had 6,811 files on my system, and I only have a
735 Meg hard drive with about 220 Megs free. Why would I possibly
need all these files? I was even more appalled to learn that I
have waste galore and that I need to do some serious computer
file housecleaning. Clone Master looks at the three major types
of problem files which are Zero-length, Duplicate and Same-Name.
It was an easy install and includes an uninstall module and upon
running the program you are presented with a screen that is clean
and will entail no great learning curve. Do take the time to
review the help file as it will help you understand what the
program looks for and how it will be presented to you.
The first time you run Clone Master you may wish to allow the
default of searching for all three types of files, but be aware
it understandably takes a few minutes to process all your files.
A better approach is to search for each type one at time. A nice
feature is that you can save the results of your search as a text
file for latter editing in a word processor, and in my case I had
no intention of resolving all of my 155 duplicate files in one
sitting. You can narrow your search by selecting whichever drive,
path, and file type you are interested in analyzing.
After searching for Zero-length files they are sorted by name but
you can click on any column header to change the sort order. You
than can Select All or Select individual files for deletion. All
files deleted by the program are sent to the Recycle Bin, so you
can reverse your deletion should you so choose.
Duplicate files can be tagged for deletion and you are well aware
of which files you have chosen because a fire icon is placed
beside each. If you have many duplicates you can even group them
into 100 , 250 etc., per page, then select the page tabs at the
top of the window to move back and forth among your files,
another nice touch. The program has a Smart Delete function that
allows you to specify which folders to process and which file to
keep.
The Same-Name screen presents a different method from the other
two in terms of what you can do, and here an explanation is in
order. It is a serious mistake on our part to assume that because
two files have the same name, that they are true duplicate files.
Clone Master presents the Same-Name search results in the form of
a Tree-View. You can right-click on files and choose to view them
in their native format. For instance , I choose an .htm file to
view and my browser was launched and loaded this file. Again,
clicking on a .txt file launched NotePad, you get the picture.
Same-Name files can not be deleted as a safety precaution, but
upon your investigation you can Rename the file thus eliminating
the confusion. This would be of great help to programmers who
save various versions of their code, and would avoid a situation
where the new working code gets deleted when the old non-working
code should have gotten the boot.
I was very impressed with Clone Master and while it will present
you with a lot of work to do with your own files, in the end, and
if you persevere, you will have a clean system and you will free
up valuable hard drive space. Of course, within a very short time
this creeping problem will reappear, but at least you will have
the tools to conquer the beast.
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