AutoC2D: Eeeasy as pie.

AutoC2D is a program made specifically for the ASUS Eee Netbook series. If you don't own an Eee, Some Eees (I'm not sure of every model) have two hard drives instead of one, such as a 4GB and an 8GB hard drive in the 901 (the model I have). The Windows installation comes installed on the 4GB, which is ok, but that's also where they put the Program Files folder. That means that if you end out installing programs, you can very quickly use up all 4GB, while you have a whole nother 8GB on another drive.

Well, AutoC2D does what the name implies: it Automaticaly moves Program Files from C to (2) D. Theoretically, after running AutoC2D, everything should work just as before, and you'll have alot more space on your C drive. How does it work? Well, here's the process:

(1) When running AutoC2D, make sure you have no unsaved work or aren't playing a game, because it will reboot without asking you.

(2) Once rebooting, it will automatically start into Safe Mode, which is a mode where only the bare minimum of programs will be run. It does this so it can free up every file in the Program Files folder.

(3) It will automatically start copying from C:\Program Files to D:\Program Files.

(4) It will reboot, out of safe mode.

The way AutoC2D "switches" everything over is that it not only moves the files, but it also creates a Junction. A Junction is a folder that is not really there, but points to another folder; like when you click C:\Program Files, it just takes you into D:\Program Files. It basically allows files to "exist" in two places at once, but only taking up the space of one. That's a pretty terrible definition of a Junction, so please search around for someone smarter than I, if you want to get into Junctions and whatnot.

There's a few things I've noticed about AutoC2D (since I've had to use it several times...):

Creates temporary files: After moving, I found a folder with alot of files that looked like they belong in Program Files. It's not a big deal, since you can just delete it, but I don't know if it's a "backup" folder, or maybe a "mid-move" folder. I just wish ASUS would've said something about it.

Had trouble with safe mode: I really don't know if this was just on my computer, but I had trouble with my Eee being stuck in safe mode afterwards, which was very frustrating. I did end out getting it fixed, but it made me very cross at AutoC2D. That being said, that was the first time I used it, and the other times, it worked wonderfully.

AutoC2D is fairly small, and must be installed.It is not portable because you need to download Windows Server 2003 Resource Tools, which I'd never even heard of before getting an Eee and AutoC2D.

The thing about AutoC2D is that it is basically a tool to make your life easier, and it does that by doing several steps with no human interaction. But you can't do it manually as well, if you want.

If you wanted to manually pull a "C2D", all you need to do is boot into safe mode, move C:\Program Files to D:\Program Files, and create a junction. Of course, most people might be afraid when I say "create a junction", but it's actually quite simple if you use a tool like Link Shell Extension, which practically makes it as easy as making a new folder. The plus to doing it manually is that you can select someplace other than D:\Program Files. But if you don't really care and want to just be able to run a program, walk away, and come back with all your programs moved over, then AutoC2D will definitely make your life easier.

Visit AutoC2D (ASUS) website for download

DriveSort: Sort it like it's hot.

DriveSort is a very handy small tool to quickly and easily sort the files on your drives. DriveSort is very much like List Large Files, although, to me at least, it seems more intuitive.

Like List Large Files, you can sort by Size, meaning it will pull up the largest files. But it sets itself apart, in that you can also browse for a specific folder, while List Large Files can only do entire drives. But then again, DriveSort automatically returns 100 results, and List Large Files can be configured to return as many as you like.

But enough comparison. DriveSort can also sort a drive by the Date, meaning it will pull up the newest files in order. The creator states that this is good for "when you have just installed a new

application, and want to find out what files have been created by the installation program," and I agree with him. It also helps if maybe you were working on a file, but can't remember where you saved it or what its name was. Pull up DriveSort, and it will find it right away.

Another reason DriveSort is good is how organized it is. The window is very small and neat, with several columns for "Filename", "Size", "Date Created", and "Path". It's very nice that the Filename is separate from the path, and that the size is written in MB rather than bytes. Do make a note, though, that you cannot click a column header to sort the list. The list is automatically sorted by whichever option you chose: Size or Date. It's also very handy that if you right click an entry, you can choose "Open" or "Open folder".

Overall, it's a very handy tool. It's extremely fast at searching, and shows the results in an organized way. It is extremely light, weighing only 32kb, and being standalone. It's also light on resources, running at about 250kb idle before a scan, around 5mb during a scan, and then back down to around 300kb afterwards. It's also portable, which is very handy if you want to try to help a friend figure out where his space is going.

Visit DriveSort (lmadhavan) website for download

TreeSize Free: Size it up!

TreeSize Free is a utility to analyze where the large files and folders are on your disk.  So basically, you open it up, pick to scan a drive or direcetory, and then it will show you a tree view, with largest on top. If you expand a folder in the tree, it will show the contents in the same fashion, and etc for those contents. 

A few things about it:

-Pick drives or directories: It lists every drive, even ones that don't have anything in it...which could be annoying....But then you can also select just a directory.

-Bars: To show space usage visually, it has horizontal bars for each folder, and then underneath that, more bars for each of the folder's contents. The annoying thing about this is that they are all the same color. In WinDirStat, subfolders have a different color, so it's very easy to see what is part of what. And in the latest version (2.2...), they changed from a nice color to a (imho) hideous orange/yellow color...and I don't believe you can change it. But you can at least turn it off if you don't want the bars.

-Refresh, but no Refresh Selected: There is a refresh feature, but no "Refresh selected" like in WinDirStat. But it's not necessarily bad since it's....

-Relatively fast: From what I've seen, it's generally faster than other programs like it. It takes seconds, and (I haven't checked) but very light. 

-Different views: Probably more views than any other program like it, even WinDirStat. It has Size, Allocated space (different, apparently), percent (and children will show the percent of their parents), CD/DVD cluster size (which is new to this version, so I dunno...), and File Count. True, other programs like WinDirStat show multiple of these, like Size, Items, Files, and Percent, but TreeSize Free has a few more. And it seems to calcuate them alot faster.

-Sizes: This is kinda nice. You can select to display sizes as KB, MB, GB, or (the best) mixed sizes, so it will show "20gb" on one folder, and "52mb" on the one below. Way better than having "20,000mb", or if you were to look in kb, "20,000,000kb". Unless you want that kinda thing. Which is why you have the choice.

-Tooltips: This is definitely new in v2.2. So a tooltip is a tiny "window" that appears when you hover your mouse over something (like the start menu), but TreeSize Free takes tooltips to the next level. If you hover your mouse over a folder or file, it shows a MASSIVE tooltip including:

• Name
• Size
• Allocated space
• % of parent
• Wasted (I dunno...)
• Files
• Folders
• Last change/access
• Attributes
• Directory level
• Creation date
• Average file size
• Permissions
• and more

So it gives you a fair amount of data, for a tooltip. But if you don't like it, you can turn it off.

-Files interweaved, but not expandable: I almost forgot. Some programs show only folders, but TreeSize Free includes "[Files]" in the list, reporting the combined size. Kinda nice, but it would be nice if [Files] would be treated like a folder, and you could expand it and see the individual files, like in WinDirStat, but I suppose that's just getting picky. So in other words, TreeSize Free doesn't handle large files, it just points you to where they are.

-Context: If you rightclick a folder in explorer (and you have the Context Menu option turned on), you can open it in TreeSize Free and it will start analyzing. Handy, right? Well, the really handy part is that it's not part of the install (well it might be...I'm running portable....:P), but there's actually an option in the menu, a checkmark that can add and remove it. So if you change your mind and want to get it out of your context, you don't have to go sifting through your registry, you can just flip it off. Plus, if you're going to be analyzing alot of disk space for a few hours, but you are a neat-freak about your context menu and want it clean afterwards, flip it on, analyze, then flip it off. I think I've made my point.

-File Filter: Not easily found, but there is one. Under View>Options, you can specify any filter, either filetype or part of a name.

-Print: Easy print button. Haven't used it, but it's there.

-Portable: Download just the EXE on the developer's site to run it portable.

-Tiny....ish: It's just under 1mb, so I'm gonna say that's tiny. That's generally my standard. But if you're looking for something smaller, than try i.Disk, as it is half the size of TreeSize Free. Or even WinDirStat is smaller than it by a couple 100kb....but I do think TreeSize Free is lighter on resources....

That's about all. Not a bad little program. It's been pretty faithful to me. It was the first disk analyzer I found, and I used it alot until I found WinDirStat. But it's still good, and I recommend it. Except for the new ugly bars.....what is up with that?

Visit TreeSize Free (JAM Software) website for download

List Large Files: The bigger they are, the harder they fall

List Large Files (or "LargeFiles2," as I call it) is a program to list the large files of your drive. It's a very simply program, written in Delphi, but it can be fairly useful. Basically, you just pick a drive letter from the drop down list, specify how many files you want it to list, and and click "List largest files." On the left, it shows the size of the files (biggest at the top, of course), and on the right, it shows the path and filename. If you click on a file path, it opens the containing folder in explorer, which is really handy.

That's really it. Very simply program. It's portable and tiny, at only 390kb in a standalone app. It can tend to chew up CPU when it's scanning, but it sits around only 3mb of RAM, so it's pretty light. It's even open source, which is cool, if you're into that sorta thing.

I had some negative stuff I was gonna write about it, but I just ran it, and both of the things I was gonna say didn't happen.....The first would be that it doesn't always pick up every large file, like the pagefile, or the hibernation file, but it just picked up pagefile.sys for me. I was also gonna say that it takes a while to scan and can look like it's frozen up, but it took about 30 seconds for each drive, and then about 2 if I rescanned the same drive, and it didn't freeze.....

So in other words, it's alot better program than I thought it was. I don't think that it is complete disk space management worthy, but it is a handy tool. Maybe you don't want to sort through all of the files, and you just wonder "Hey, I wonder what the biggest file on my drive is." In that case, LargeFiles2 is the program for you.

Visit List Large Files (DelphiForFun) website for download

EasyCleaner: The name describes it all.

EasyCleaner is a very handy freeware that helps with disk cleanup, disk space management, registry cleaning, startup manager, and more, all contained in a tiny 3.5mb program. Ok, maybe not so tiny, but for doing so much, I'd say it's worth it.

So some features:

-Registry Cleaner: Simply put, a very comprehensive registry cleaner. Find, then delete either one by one or all, and you can print or save the results. It's actually more comprehensive than CCleaner. You'll notice that EasyCleaner always picks up more entries, but I have never had one problem, so I'd say it just does a better job.

-Uninstaller: Not listed above, but it does have an uninstaller. It's not as thorough as Revo Uninstaller, but a little more complicated than CCleaner's. You actually are able to edit and delete entries. But for uninstalling, it's just the Windows uninstaller. Oh, you can also save or print this as well.

-Duplicate finder: Like a DoubleKiller built in, but less advanced. There are both include and ignore filters, but you can only select one folder on each drive. And again, you can save or print these results.

-Unnecessary files finder: Like CCleaner, but less advanced. Mostly does cookies, temp directories, and temp files (TMP files). It does have a filter, which CCleaner doesn't have. And you can save or print the results.

-Dead shortcut finder: Second most useful part, in my opinion, behind the registry cleaner. This searches the entire computer for shortcuts whose target is incorrect, or gone. This MAJORLY helps with the start menu and desktop. It also shows if the folder is empty after you delete the folder, so you can delete it as well.

-Space Usage: Like i.Disk, but really less complex and smooth. It does have a pie chart, but it's so small it's not very handy. You can zoom in to a folder and it shows the contents and their sizes and such, but to me, it's just much more clumbsy than i.Disk or other programs like it. (Did I mention that you can print or save the results?)

-Startup manager: Probably one of the most handy startup managers I've seen, but it is a little different. Instead of switching things on and off, it shows you if there are invalid or questionable items int he startup. It lets you delete entries as well. And you can save or print the results.

-IE options: To be honest, when you open EasyCleaner, it looks overwhelming, but three of the seventeen options have to do with IE (which I don't use), and they're just one click. You can clear IE temporary files, cookies, and history with the touch of a button.

-Clear MRU: Just like the above, except not IE. Click it to remove the Most Recently Used program list in the start menu.

-Undo: An option that I don't use as much, but is good. EasyCleaner automatically saves everything that you do to the registry. If you do something wrong, just go into EasyCleaner, go to Undo, find your registry entry, and click "Undo". This is a nice feature that CCleaner doesn't have. CCleaner has the option of backing up your registry changes to a hive file (REG filetype), but you can't easily view what's inside them, whereas EasyCleaner backs it up to a REG, but then also keeps track of them for you.

-Updates: Though it might look like an old program, EasyCleaner is actively supported by ToniArts, with the latest update in 2009 (today being January 18.)

Lastly, EasyCleaner has a bunch of Options that you can tweak for every feature listed above.


So that's the features, but here's some other things that make it good.

-Portable: Very handy to take from PC to PC. Since EasyCleaner is kind of like a cleaup suite, it might be the only app you need when cleaning a friends PC. You can also trim it down to probably about 2mb if you ditch the Undo feature and get rid of the languages and help files.

-Fast: Most of the features are very fast, which makes it very handy.


So when it comes to EasyCleaner, I like to say this: for most of the features, there are programs that do a bettere job, like CCleaner for disk cleanup, Revo Uninstaller for uninstaller, DoubleKiller for double finding, i.Disk for a small disk analyzer, and etc. However, I would have to say, if you want one program that does a good job on all of those things, get EasyCleaner. I recommend EasyCleaner anyway in addition to those, partly because, to me, the registry cleaner and shortcut finder makes it worth it and all the other stuff is just extra. But if you want to install as few programs as possible (like I am on my EEE PC 901), use EasyCleaner.

*I did not make the icon at the top. It was made on this site, and I do not clame credit for it.

Visit EasyCleaner (ToniArts) website for download

DoubleKiller: Duplicate assassin supreme.

Doubles happen. Like twins. Except electronic. And really not like twins at all. But seriously, occasionally, I have two folders that could have duplicates, and DoubleKiller can search and find the duplicates. Here's a few options that I like:

-Different rules: You can check to find duplicates if the names, sizes, dates, or checksums are the same. So if you think that there might be dupes but have different names, then you can do size and checksum, or if you wonder if there are things with just same names, do just names.

-Filters: It has both include and exclude filters, so you can filter out things such as Thumbs.db, or include only filetypes like TXTs. You can also leave out things such as read-only files, hidden files, system files, archives, or even files that are under or over a specified size.

-Folder selection: Obvious choice, let's you pick as many numbers of folders that you want, and gives the option of including subdirectories.

-Check first dupes/last dupes and delete checked: Lets you easily select all but the top dupe or the bottom dupe for each file in the list, and then delete whatever you have checked. Alot easier than deleting one by one. Or you also have the option of moving the checked files if you're not sure you want to delete them just yet, or whatever reason you might have.

-Option of registry storage: There's actually a checkbox that says "Save settings in registry," and a button to "Delete settings in registry". Sweet action! This means that if you use it alot, you can save your settings, and then delete them at any time with the click of a button.

-Tiny: all you need is one executable that is 700kb, so I'd say that's tiny for being incredibly useful.

-Portable: Put the last two options together, and you get one portable app. As long as you keep the "Registry" box unchecked, it's completely portable,

There is one con....

-Crashizzle: I have to say, it crashes.....alot. Basically, if it's scanning a large amount of files and you shift focus from it (as in change to another program) it is likely to freeze. But I mean, it's pretty sporadic. It doesn't always freeze, but I've just noticed that it has a tendency to freeze more than other programs.


I still think it's a handy program to have on a flash drive or PC. It may not be perfect, but it is WAAAAY better than pulling two explorer windows side by side and trying to compare, trust me.

Visit DoubleKiller (Big Bang Enterprise) website for download

i.Disk: Not to be confused with Apple's software...

i.Disk is a small utility that can tell you how your disk space is divided. According to the developer's site, it "scans directory trees and displays the total space used by each directory in an easy to use form." It's basically skin and bones, nothin' fancy, just shows you what you need to know. Here's a few pluses:

-Colored sublevels: each sublevel's is a different color, so it's easy to tell what level the folder is at.

-Copy and Paste: Easy copy and paste, within seconds, the entire tree, even the expanded subfolders. Very nice if you are on the go.

-"Browse": Nice, of course. You are able to open a folder straight from i.Disk.

-"Replicate"?: Apparently it has some feature called "Replicate," which is really like a folder syncronizer. You pick two folders and have the options such as "Replicate all files/folders from A to B" or vise versa, "Process subfolders," and "Include..." and "Exclude..." as well.

-Portable; You can either run the installer, copy the files, then uninstall it, or just use the Universal Extractor.

Here's a few things that I don't like about it though:

-No "Now Searching" dialouge": When it searches, i.Disk doesn't really tell you when it starts or finishs. The only way to tell is if the "Stop" button is lit up, and the "Open" and "Refresh" buttons are dimmed. It would be nice to have just a little text that says "Searching..." or something somewhere, but you get used to it.

-Doesn't show files: In the list, it doesn't show files, only folders. Other programs have this, such as WinDirStat.

Otherwise, it's an awesome little program. It's lighter than programs like WinDirStat, so if you don't need all the graphical interface or smoothness, you can use i.Disk and save on memory and space. The install is only 470kb with the installer, 439kb without, so it's very compact and ready to go.

Visit i.Disk (MemeCode) website for Download

FolderSize: A size for your folders!

Ever find it annoying that the "Size" column doesn't show the size of folders, only files? Well, here's the next best thing. FolderSize creates another column called -you guessed it- "Folder Size." It does what you might think, it shows the size of the folders in a column just as if it were a file. In addition to that, though, it also shows the size of files, so it acts like the "Size" collumn too.

The advantages are obvious and abundant, and make it a very useful tool. But still, a few things that I think are annoying about it:

-Get used to right clicking: Basically for every folder that you want this column in, you have to ad it like you'd add any other column. I think the reason that when you install it, it doesn't apply everywhere is that there's a service that runs in the background, and if it were to add to every folder on your system, it might make that service eat RAM.

-A service: Yes, when installing FolderSize, it installs a service called FolderSizeSvc.exe, which "caches the sizes of all folders viewed in Explorer. The service monitors folders for changes and updates the cache in the background." You might think that this would eat up RAM, but I haven't noticed it doing anything of the sort. According to the developer's site, it does slow down the PC a slight bit (any service does...), but it doesn't consume CPU all the time. At the moment, it's at 5mb of RAM on my system. As it counts up folders, it steadily climbs in RAM. I just had it count 130gigs of data, and it used around 7% CPU at some parts, and at the very end it was using 10.5mb of RAM. But that's for the entire disk, and that every subfolder is already counted.

-Files in different order: Perhaps the next step in FolderSize, I would prefer files in the FolderSize column to be in line with folders, like in WinDirStat. Like I would like it to be:

Turtles [Folder] 20mb

Monkey.jpg 5mb

Freeware [Folder] 1mb

TheOfficeRocks.txt 23kb

But instead, it is like as follows:

Monkey.jpg 5mb

TheOfficeRocks.txt 23kb

Turtles [Folder] 20mb

Freeware [Folder] 1mb

It shows all the files by size, then all the folders by size, but I would like the option to combine them. I believe, though, that the creator said that Microsoft made this impossible, so I will have to be content.

Foldersize is pretty darn handy, but I just wouldn't recommend it on systems with a small amount of RAM. Other than that, it's incredibly useful.

Visit FolderSize website for Download

WinDirStat: Disk space management, tetris style.

WinDirStat (short for "Windows Directory Statistics") provides a visual representation of occupied disk space. Here's a few things that are nice, and some of them unique to WinDirStat:

-Option to scan multiple drives, or folders: This is a handy feature, it allows you to select one drive, or two drives, or three, but not all of them. Or, you can select just one folder, anywhere on any drive.

-Directory list: Nice, tree-type directory listing. Shows "Files" for files in a folder, and places "Files" in with the lists of subfolders.

-Directory selection: Selecting a directory or file in the shows it in the graph, and vise versa. This means that if you want to know how big a file is comparatively, click on it in the directory, and it will be highlighted in the graph. Or conversely, if you see a large file, click on it, and it will show you what file it is, and where.

-Colored file types: Ever wondered what file type you have the most? Or collectively takes up the most space? WinDirStat can tell you. In the graph, it shows the first 12 or so as their own colors, so that you can more easily see what is where. It also shows in the sidebar how much a filetype is collectively (like mp3s is 20.4mb), how much percentage for a filetype is (like mp3s is 34.2%), and how many files is in each (like mp3s is 40). You can click the columns, and choose to order by any of the above, but the default is the collective size.

-Zoom: Rather than having to reload to a subfolder, you can just zoom in on it. This is extremely helpful if you want to tackle one folder at a time. However, just keep in mind that the colors of the files does not change, because WinDirStat has still analyzed the whole disk or the folder you selected, not its subfolder. But you can zoom in as much as you want, even to a single file, if you so desire, and the folder you are currently zoomed in on is outlined in blue in the directory.

-"Refresh Selected": This is really helpful. Instead of having to refresh the entire thing (which is a feature, by the way), you can refresh one folder, or one file.

-Contexts: WinDirStat also has handy tools such as "Open Item," "Copy Path," "Explorer Here," "Command Prompt Here," and the ability to show the properties of the file.

-Cleanups: Because WinDirStat is all about disk space management, you are allowed 10 customizable cleanups that are command line based, so you can run programs on a certain file or a certain folder like a secure deletion program perhaps, or like I do, have CCleaner as one.

-Two delete options: If you want to delete normally, you can choose to delete to the recycle bin. If you don't want stuff to build up in your recycle bin, you have the option to delete permanently.

-Report: Has the ability to create a report.

-Choice of display: You can choose KDirStat or SequoiaView. KDirStat is actually based off something for KDE, or Linux, I believe. Really, the only difference that I can discern is this: SequoiaView aims to reduce what I call "splinters." In KDirStat, very small files are often shrunken to very thin strips rather than boxes, and these can be hard to see in the graph. SequoiaView attempts to keep that from happening, and keep everything as a box. It's really all about preference.

-Portable: Yes, that's right. How can an app as handy as this not be portable? This is really useful if someone says "I have no idea how my disk got filled up so quickly." Pull out your flash drive, and it's WinDirStat to the rescue. Visit the good people at PortableApps.com for the download.

Over-stuffed computers can be very intimidating. Alot of times it's difficult to even know where to begin. WinDirStat is so friendly to the eye and easy to use, it helps relieve the stress, and almost makes it...fun!

Visit WinDirStat website for Download