The Disk Cleanup Utility is useful in getting rid of files on your computer that are unnecessary. This is particularly handy if you are running out of disk space. In Windows XP, you can launch the utility by clicking Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools and click Disk Cleanup. A dialog box will appear where you can select the drive that you want to clean up.

I have run the Disk Cleanup utility several times. However, when I tried to clean my C drive, the utility would always hang. This problem did not occur when I selected a different volume.

If you run into this problem, you can try a couple of things to stop it from hanging. First, the problem may be due to the fact that your volume is heavily fragmented. So before you run the Disk Cleanup utility, use the Disk Defragmenter to defrag the volume.

Alternatively, the utility may be hanging because of corrupt temp files. Therefore, you should delete the files in your Temp folder. After you perform these steps, try running the Disk Cleanup utility again and you should have better luck. In other words, it should not hang on you.