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Item: Spring Cleaning 3.0 Manufacturer: Aladdin Systems Price: About $50, $20 for upgrade |
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About Spring Cleaning 3.0
Here are most of the twelve searches displayed in the main window. Simply highlight the search and click next.
Shown at actual size, this is the File menu for Spring Cleaning. Notice the Restore feature.
Here is the progress bar for the Orphaned Pref Remover.
Here are the preferences for the Font Remover.
Here are the results from the Help Remover search. The file info, location, etc. are displayed. The popped up window contains the available actions. |
Introduction Spring Cleaning 3.0 is the newest version available today. The 2.0 version has been put behind, but we have reviewed it also in the past. Spring Cleaning is a great utility that helps clean up your hard drive and assist you in lengthy tasks. As you install software, many files are scattered all over your hard drive. Just think how many copies of SimpleText are on your hard drive. Spring Cleaning will find them and let you delete the unneeded copies. Now you can keep one copy, the latest version. There are many searches that allow you to find many different unneeded files. Once you have finished, you can easily save megabytes of hard drive space. This can also make your system perform better. Special Update Note: Spring Cleaning 3.0 has minor bugs and were recognized by Aladdin Systems. There is a free update from 3.0 to 3.01 available from Aladdin Systems' web site. All copies should be updated to ensure better results. The update fixes minor things though, like recognizing hard drive sizes. We have adjusted this review for the new version. Details The user interface of Spring Cleaning 3.0 has been redesigned, making it look better and easier to use. There are twelve kinds of searches for you to perform. Once you select the kind of search, then you can select the volume or hard drive to perform the search on. Spring Cleaning's code has also been rewritten, making the searches faster. Once the search is complete, it displays a neatly arranged window outlining the found files. Even invisible files are now found. You can get specific info on any of the files, much like the get info command in the Finder. Once you select the desired files, you can perform the actions. These actions vary for each search. Some of them include: duplicate, move to StuffIt archive, move, trash, replace, exclude from search, and more. Also, if you know that you want a file that appears in the search results, you can exclude it from future searches. This can save you time and you won't accidentally move it. One of the best things about Spring Cleaning 3.0 is the new Restore option. It keeps track of all your actions that you have done within the program. If later you realize that you need to get your files back to their original location, you are insured. You can reverse any of your actions. This provides very safe options for you and your system. Just think if you don't know if you need certain files. You can remove them and store them. If you do realize you need them, it is no problem. All the files will go back to their original position. This makes searching more fun and less painful. Details: Alias Fixer The Alias Fixer search looks for invalid or outdated aliases. You may have had a file and made an alias. But then you deleted the file. The alias would be no longer needed so you can trash it. These bad aliases are displayed in one category within the search results. You may also have an alias pointing to a different volume, maybe a piece of removable media. Once you recognize this, you can exclude the file from future searches. There are also a bunch of actions that you can perform on these files. Obviously, you can redirect the alias to point to a new file. Details: Document Finder The Document Finder search will find two categories of files. One will be the files with the same type and application that created it. The other group will be files with the same type, but not the same application that created them. This allows you to remove files that were made by a program not on your computer. You can also rearrange files so you can access them easier. One of the actions is the ability to assign the file a new parent application. Of course, the other basic actions are also there. Details: Duplicates Remover This search will find two types of duplicate files. Spring Cleaning actually searches the contents of the files. As a result, it may find files with the same content. That is one type of duplicate. The other type of duplicates are files with the same name. A quick way to check these are to look at the size of them. There may be a bunch of Read Me files on your hard drive, but they may all be different sizes and have different contents. Again, there are the basic actions plus more. Details: Empty Folder Remover Empty folders don't take up hard drive space, but you may be limited on the amount of folders you can have. Spring Cleaning will find these useless folders for you. Folders with custom icons are displayed in a separate category, so you can save them. Probably the main action here is to delete the folder. Details: Fat App Slimmer Some applications are written for both 68K and PPC machines. Your machine only uses one of these though. The other code is unnecessary and just takes up more space on your hard drive. Spring Cleaning will remove the 68K or PPC code from these fat binary applications. An important thing to remember is if you upgraded your machine. A 68K to PPC upgrade will use the PPC code. If the upgrade was ever removed, you would need the 68K code. But if you have a factory PPC, you can remove all the 68K code, as you won't need it. Here you can save megabytes of disk space. Details: File Checker This search is new in version 3.0. It will look for files that are damaged. The data or structure may be causing your system problems. You can delete these and replace them if you have backups. Or, if you have a disk repair utility, you may be able to fix them. Details: Font Remover The Font Remover search will find every font on your system. It displays the fonts inside your system folder and the ones outside it. The active fonts obviously take up space, but also RAM. They even slow down the startup time of your computer. If you know you're not going to use certain fonts, you can take them out of the system folder. This can save you very much if you have many fonts. Also for your convenience, a sample of each font is displayed in the search results window. Now you can quickly decide if you like the font or not. Placing them into a StuffIt archive may also be appropriate if you're not sure. Details: Help Remover The Help Remover search will find all help files that were installed and scattered throughout your hard drive. It will find help engines, help files, documentation, and Read Me files. Once you have read the help files, you can probably stuff them, put them on removable media, or trash them. All those files can take a bit of disk space. Details: MacUninstaller MacUninstaller is probably one of the best searches in Spring Cleaning. This search will let you find all the files associated with a program that you select. Since installers place files in folders deep in your system, it would be very difficult to manually find them. MacUninstaller will find the application, control panels, extensions, invisible files, and other related files. You can heavily rely on this search to remove an entire software package. This is a very handy search that saves very much time and effort. Details: Orphan Adopter An orphaned file is a file that was made by a program that is not currently on your system. You may have removed the program and kept the files that you once made. Now you can find all these files and deal with them. A great action to perform here is the assign new parent action. If you had an orphaned text file, you could assign it to SimpleText. Whenever you try to open the file, it will launch with SimpleText. This can save you time when you try to open the files. Details: Orphaned Pref Remover Every application that you run will make a preference file in your system folder. If you no longer use a certain program, you have an orphaned preference file. This search will allow you to find them and you will most likely delete them. However, you must be very careful. Some preference files will appear in the search results but you may have that application. Other applications may be stored on removable media like CD-ROMs. You can just exclude these preferences from future searches. Without the preference file, an application will just run with the default settings. Details: Storage Items Remover Using the other searches, you can use the action move to storage folder. If you are unsure about moving files, it is better to move them to a storage folder so you can deal with them later. This search will find all those storage folders. Then you can decide what actions you want to take. Conclusion Spring Cleaning 3.0 is a utility for many users who install software. Software installers place files all over your hard drive. MacUninstaller will find all the files for a program and remove them. The other searches will find unwanted files so you can remove them, saving you valuable disk space. Your system can run faster and more efficient. With the new restore feature, users shouldn't be afraid to totally clean out files. If you want to bring them back, you can just make a few clicks and they are back. Also, if you don't have a version of StuffIt Deluxe, that's fine. Spring Cleaning will stuff files for you, the StuffIt engine is built into the software. Spring Cleaning will provide quick and very efficient help for users who have software. You should definitely try to get your hands on a copy of this. At $50 for the full version, it is a great deal. For version 2.0 users, $20 is really worth the restore feature and the new faster code, not to mention the other features. Start the cleanup today! Rating 
9/10
This review was published by the CCPlace Staff. No duplication of this review or any part of this review is permitted. |
