USE THE DISK CLEANUP UTILITY

Seasoned administrators know that regular maintenance keeps the server doctor away. To bolster these preventive efforts, Windows Server 2003 includes a number of utilities to help keep your server clean, tidy, and operating at peak efficiency.

Among these, the Disk Cleanup utility lets you keep your server's disks free of clutter, resulting in recaptured space and increased performance.

You have two options to access Disk Cleanup:

* Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | DiskCleanup.
* Enter cleanmgr at the command line.

When Disk Cleanup starts, it scans your server for files that could be wasting space. Disk Cleanup presents these results via a GUI, which allows you to decide what to keep and what to delete.

You could have entries for programs you've downloaded from the Internet as well as some temporary Internet files. For example, if you have Office installed on the server, you can recover more than 150 MB by removing the Office installation files. Compressed files, temporary files, and files in the Recycle Bin are all fair game for deletion.

On the More Options tab, you can start the Add/Remove Programs and Add/Remove Windows Components wizards. This lets you track down and remove unnecessary components to free up more disk space.