Random Babble

[tealin]

In case anyone is wondering when I'll ever post any worthwhile drawings again, then that person should read Monstrous Regiment soon because I'm working on a whole slew of stuff from that, and I won't be making any concessions in the pronoun gender department. I whipped through that book too quickly last year in my mad Pratchett binge so I'm trying to make up for it this time.

A question for computerly knowledgeable people: If I run Disk Cleanup, and it analyzes for eleven hours but still doesn't get anywhere, should I give up on it, or just let it run? I checked in the task manager and it says 'running,' not 'not responding,' and it looks like it's working in the Processes list. I've never done the Disk Cleanup before [shaaaame] so it's probably got a lot to sift through, but I did just defrag yesterday.

Comments

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

As always, I look forward to art. And partly because of your influence, I've started reading the Discworld series. I'm just about finished with "The Color Of Magic". So far, Terry Prachett reminds me of Douglas Adams, in that snarky British way.

As for the Disk Cleanup thing:

1) Which version of Windows are you running? (Or do you have a Mac?)
2) Have you run Defrag lately?
3) How much free space do you have left?

Usually, Disk Cleanup does take a long time to run. This is especially true if you haven't run Defrag lately and/or you are almost out of room on your hard drive.

Something that you might try before running Disk Cleanup in the future is to jump into your IE (or other web browsing program) and dump the browser's cache. This seems to always be a big chunk of what the cleanup program sifts through.

In Internet Explorer, go up to Tools and then down to Internet Options. It'll be right there on the first property sheet about halfway down.

Hope this is helpful.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I defragged yesterday, and also uninstalled a bunch of programs I'm not using anymore, deleted the MP3s I'd 'temporarily' ripped onto my hard drive, dumped the cache, and sorted through my accumulation of Quicktimes and AVIs that I should have weeded a long time ago. If the previous poster's experience is that it takes a couple days, then, well... I'll let it take that long. I just didn't know if it was a glitch that was making it take so long or if it was a normal thing. Oh, and I have Windows 2000, and about 50% free space (how have I used it all up??).

Yeah, Terry Pratchett started out as sort of the Douglas Adams of fantasy, with those earlier books, but he's developed better plot structure, depth, and character development than I've found in any of Adams' books. Just wait till you get to Night Watch. |: )

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

Okay... Sounds like you've got the bases covered. I'd let it run. Sometimes it takes a really long time.

I'll look forward to Night Watch :-D

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and expertise ... you're nice to have around! :)

[dragonclaws.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Maybe you can help me. I have a Vaio with windows XP or whatever the hell it is that's the most recent version, and it says that my Local Disk (C:) is practically full, but my Local Disk (D:)has nearly nothing on it. So here's my question: can I make it so that programs are downloaded to the D drive, and move said progammes there, but still have them work on the computer?

Sorry, twirlynoodle. My computer will just explode if I don't get this question answered.

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

To answer your question in a broad, general sort of way, yes you can. However, not in the way that you're thinking. You'll need to uninstall the programs that you want to move and then reinstall using the "Custom" installation setting and tell it exactly where you want it to go. You will probably loose any customized settings that you had on those programs, and some packages like Microsoft Office will still put a whole crapload of files on your C Drive.

To answer your question in a narrow, specific to you sort of way, I'd say probably not. Usually, a "stock" D Partition on a Name Brand computer is just a dinky little drive (2-16 Gigabytes) that they put a bunch of software images on so they don't have to provide the end users with discs. These partitions are usually sparsely populated.

My best advice to you is to go through your Add/Remove Programs list and uninstall any programs that you don't ever use anymore. Then, I'd do everything that Tealin did [points up toward twirlynoodle's response], the IE Cache flush, and then I'd run Disk Cleanup.

After that, if I hadn't cleaned up enough, I'd start looking at my MP3's, and backing them off onto CDs or DVDs. If you do any artwork, digital photography, photo restoration, or movie capture/editing on that machine, I'd do the same with those files. Then, I'd delete 'em, and empty my Recycle Bin. That will clean things up significantly.

Hope that this is helpful to you.

[dragonclaws.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've done all that. Not the D drive stuffs, but the cleaning and everything. Thank you. I'll be sure to do that. I've really cleaned up my computer, and its still wonky.

[gilded-garb.livejournal.com]

I'm totally a lurker but I thought I'd pipe up for this. For some wacky reason, on a Vaio, the C drive is teeny tiny and the D drive is huge. Essentially, you have to install all of your programs on the D drive which is lame because like the previous poster said, most packages will dump stuff on the C drive anyway. My advice: do the uninstall/reinstall thing and move all your files (stuff in MyDocuments and all that) onto D drive. That's what we had to do on our Vaio desktop.

And just so that this comment somewhat relates to the post: I ♥ Monstrous Regiment! More art would be yummy :o)

*descends back into lurkdom*