Speed up Windows Vista - Setting Up Advanced Windows Cleanup Vista

Speed up Windows Vista - Setting Up Advanced Windows Cleanup Vista
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Vista’s Disk Cleanup utility has a “hidden” disk cleanup utility that gives you access to additional space-recovering, speed-booting options. Called cleanmgr.exe, you can use this utility for advanced cleanup, to get rid of old installation files, error files, unnecessary upgrade files, and any checkdisk (CHKDSK) fragments that may be stranded on the hard drive.

These advanced cleanup options are maintained and managed via settings that are stored by a feature called a System Agent, or sage for short. You can use the System Agent (sage) to set your options, by creating a sagest. Vista will use the settings contained in the disk cleanup sagest to determine the particular files you want it to delete in a disk cleanup.

Tip#1: Create a Disk Cleanup Sageset for Advanced Cleanup

  1. Open the Start menu by clicking on the Vista Orb.
  2. Type “cmd” into your Start Search box and press Enter.
  3. Right click on “cmd” in the search results. Select “Run as administrator” from the options.
  4. Type in: cleanmgr /sagetset: 1 (Note the space between the words “cleanmgr” and the forward slash). Click OK. This opens the Disk Cleanup Settings dialog.
  5. Check each item you want to get rid of. You can choose to select any or all of the options.
  6. Click OK.

To Run the cleanmgr /sagerun:1 Command

  1. Click on the Vista orb to open the Start menu
  2. Type cleanmgr /sagerun:1 into the Start Search box.
  3. Press Enter.

Vista will run automatically run the disk cleanup in enhanced mode, cleaning out the files as you had specified. You can run this command at any time you wish.

Tip #2: Create a Disk Cleanup Sagerun to Schedule Disk Cleanup

After creating a sagest to set your Disk Cleanup options, you will create a sagerun to run those options. The sagerun is basically a system agent (sage) that will pre-define when the disk cleanup process will run. Here’s how to create a disk clean up sagerun.

  1. Click on the Vista Orb to open the Start menu. Click on Control Panel and then click Scheduled Tasks.
  2. Click on Add Scheduled Tasks. This will launch the Scheduled Task Wizard.
  3. Click Next. Let the system retrieve your programs, which may take a while. When it is done, an alphabetical list of programs will be displayed. It’s very likely that cleanmgr.exe won’t be listed, so click Browse? to locate it.
  4. Click the Windows folder in the Select Program to Schedule dialog window. Click on the system32 folder
  5. Click cleanmgr.exe and then click Open. Click on the radio button for specifying how often this task should be performed. Click Next. Set your time parameters and click Next.
  6. Enter your password if prompted and click Next again.
  7. Check the checkbox labeled: Open advanced properties for this when I click Finish.
  8. Type a space in the cleanmgr dialog, and then type /sagerun:1 after the Run: line.
  9. Click Apply. Click OK.

At the specified time, the disk cleanup program will run automatically.

NOTE:

  • Each sagest or sagerun command is identified by a number, allowing you to differentiate one from the other. You can create a number of different clean up profiles, each one with a completely different clean up option. In this case, you will simply assign a different number to each profile. For example: /sagest:1, /sagest:2, /sagest:3, /sagest:4 e.t.c. along with corresponding commands: /sagerun:1, /sagerun:2, /sagerun:3, /sagerun:4
  • You can create up to 65,535 sagesets

This post is part of the series: 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista

Continuing in the series, Dianna Monda Dill shares 21 more of her favorite tips for improving the performance of Windows Vista. From the simplest to the most complex, here are 21 more power-user tips for Vista.

  1. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 1 - Setup Advanced Cleanup
  2. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 2 - Clean Up System Restore and Shadow Copies
  3. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 3 – Use ReadyBoost to Extend Memory
  4. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 4 - Optimize Your Paging File
  5. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 5 - Use Two Paging Files
  6. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 6 - Manage Your Virtual Memory Resources
  7. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 7 - Buy Vista Compatible Upgrade Components
  8. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 8 - Install Additional RAM
  9. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 9 - Upgrade Your Graphics Card
  10. 21 More Super Ways to Speed Up Vista - Part 10 - Upgrade Your Hard Disk Drive