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You’ll be amazed by the number of files that are left behind on your harddisk on a daily basis!
Adios!
searches through all directories and subdirectories (also hidden ones) on your harddisk for temporary- and other garbagefiles left behind (all the time...) by the programs you use and by the Windows operating system. Some of these files can be left behind anywhere on your hard disk, and not only in the customary "temp" directories. Further more, if programs crash or Windows is not closed in a correct fashion, the number of trash files can be huge... Adios! also cleans up the HUGE mess left behind by the XP Servicepack-2 installation!
Some files can not be deleted if in use by the windows system. Therefore the eventual number of freed bytes can be lower than the estimated values on the displays. Files that are in use are not safe
to delete anyway...
File extensions that are usually safe to delete:
.chk - saved lost clusters (only root dir of drive)
.bak, .old - editor backup file
.tmp, .temp - temporary file
.swp - temporary swap file
.ldb - database temp file
.gid, .fts, .ftg - Windows helpsystem temp file
.dmp - debugger programs memory dump
.pca - Windows temp configuration file
.txt.shs - Windows "OLE" scrap files, can even contain virusses!
Some .txt files - Windows temp install summaries
Some .log files - Files used to store program progress.
Log files are never deleted, except for "WS_FTP.LOG", but truncated (made 0 bytes size)!
All filenames and -extensions starting with the "~" symbol are considered temp files
We have spent a lot of researchtime on defining the temporary garbage files of over 75 popular Windows
programs, resulting in more than 150 new temp+garbage file types. Registered users: Make sure to download the latest update-files from the download page!!
Additional information from the Adios! Setup screen Help:
"Cookies": stored by your browser to share data with websites that use this feature. Cookies usually contain passwords, shoppinglists or
search queries.
"Downloaded Program Files" folders: This folder contains "ActiveX components", which are little programs the browser uses to perform certain tasks, such as viewing webpages
containing Flash animations or other specific binary content. ActiveX files can also contain virusses! Deleting these files is safe; your browser will automatically re-download needed ActiveX files.
Explorer "history" folder: links to all visited internet sites and openend internet documents.
Explorer "favorites" folder: collection of links to your favorite web pages, don't check this
if you want to keep your favorites!
Explorer "recent" folder: links to all files, programs and documents you have opened recently on your computer, with the most accessed files first.
".BAK" files: Editor programs sometimes use a .BAK file as a backup-copy of the original file before it is saved. BAK files are seldom actually used, although you might need them in some cases.
".~" files: programs such as programming languages (and a few others) use a slightly different type of "BAK" file (see item above), by including a preceding "~" symbol (tilde) in the
file extension; e.g. "unit.~pas"
".DMP" files: Some applications that crash save a file with the contents of all the memory that is occupied by that program. Very helpful to the
programmers of that software, but not to any other living soul. Also, the Windows debug program "Dr. Watson" saves ".dmp" files if other programs crash.
".LOG" files: are used by
many programs that store program progress. Log files should not be deleted because that can result in unpredictable program behaviour; it's much safer to truncate the file (to empty, make 0 bytes). Many Windows
systemlogs and -installationlogs should not be touched and the program takes care of it's selection. Some programs use log files as a kind of database for re-use, so make sure to check all found logfiles in the
resultscreen if you enable this setting. Finally, WS_FTP.log files are always deleted because these are never used again.
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