How to remove everything from your computer except Windows and drivers?

1. Uninstalling programs
2. Formatting hard drive partitions/volumes
3. Removing unnecessary files from the system disk

Many Windows users, hesitant or unable to reinstall the operating system, prefer to completely clear the computer of installed programs and files, without touching the system itself and device drivers. Let's say right away that this method is not very effective if the purpose of removal is to increase computer performance due to the hard drive being clogged with various debris.

Formatting hard drive partitions/volumes

All disk volumes (local drives D, F, E, etc.), except for the system one (usually “Local drive C:”), do not participate in the operation of the operating system. To quickly clear the contents of volumes, we recommend that you do not delete folders and files manually, but format them:

• Make sure the drive is not a system drive. At the root of system volumes there are folders such as “Windows” and “Program Files”. If you see them, move on to another section. If there are no other sections, proceed to the next part of the article.

• Right-click on the disk to be formatted and select “Format...” from the drop-down menu.

• In the new window, click the “Start” button. Start formatting the disk, after which it will be cleared of the data stored on it.

Do the same with all other non-system partitions of the disk.

Possible difficulties and errors when deleting a browser: Why Opera is not deleted

It is worth noting that users may encounter a problem when the browser is not removed using the previously mentioned methods. In practice, this happens for the following reasons:

• There is no system folder at the specified address.
• The browser files were corrupted.
• There are viruses on your computer or laptop.

To get rid of this problem, you need to clean the system using an antivirus, and also try manually removing all browser components through the hard drive where the OS is installed.

Important! After completing the uninstallation, you should also completely erase all folders that may have been saved in the device’s memory.

Currently, not all users are deeply delighted with the Opera Internet browser. Many people, on the contrary, try to erase it immediately in order to use a different version of a program such as Firefox. In practice, you can carry out the procedure using any simple methods, however, the most effective way is to directly launch the uninstallation file from the utility folder as an administrator.

Live CD

The third and fourth options listed earlier to remove Windows 7 are good, if the computer has any other versions of the operating system, older or newer, it doesn’t matter. If Windows 7 is the only OS, a user who does not want to try his hand at the command line can burn any Live CD - an optical disk or flash drive that allows you to run the operating system without installing it on a hard drive. After downloading and recording the product to removable media, the user must:

• Start from it, having previously configured the BIOS, as described for the first method.

• Wait until the “temporary” OS is deployed on the hard drive.

• Go to desktop view - depending on the interface, the user's actions can vary significantly.

• Open standard “Explorer” or another program included by the developer to view files, for example, Total Commander.

• Switch to the system hard drive, focusing primarily on its capacity.

• Here the computer owner can choose one of two paths. The first, simpler and rougher, involves simply deleting the Windows folder - with the need to subsequently clean up traces left from the old OS.

• The second is to completely format the disk in a “temporary” working environment; in this case, there will be no extra directories or junk files left after Windows 7 removal is completed.

Tip: the user can copy important information remaining on the C drive of Windows 7 in the same file manager - this, of course, should be done not to a neighboring directory, but to a flash drive connected to the computer.

Let's sum it up

You can remove Windows 7 from your computer using a boot disk or flash drive from another operating system, or by running a Live CD. In all cases that do not involve formatting the partition, the user will subsequently have to look for ways to completely remove the old Windows after installing the new one. Before proceeding with manipulations, it is recommended to save all important data located on the media being processed.

How to remove the second Windows installed on your computer

If, when you start your computer, a menu appears with a choice of operating system to launch, you can remove the unnecessary one directly on the Windows desktop. To do this you will need:

1. Open the command interpreter by pressing Win + R, enter MSCONFIG and click OK.

1. Go to the “Download” tab, select the unwanted distribution in the list.
2. Click the Delete button, then OK.

Note! When a dialog box appears asking you to restart your computer, you must answer yes.

Destroying useless media content

Remember Plyushkin from the book “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol? Well, mountains, or rather tens and hundreds of gigabytes, of seemingly useful, but seemingly useless content on the disks of your PC clearly indicate that you are very similar to this literary hero...

Books, films, TV series, huge software distributions, and games that are not particularly necessary take up precious free disk space. And they also burden the user with the need to constantly increase it when something else needs to be loaded.

To remove this category of files (but not installed programs!), use the standard Windows option:

1. Right-click on the file or folder you want to destroy. And then click “Delete” in the context menu.

Removing unnecessary files from the system disk

Windows has a number of folders where program files, various logs, cached data, etc. are stored. By default, these folders are hidden. But they can be opened. Method for all versions of Windows:

• Press “Win ​​+ R” on your keyboard, copy the following command into the window that opens (after click “OK”): rundll exe shell32. dll, Options_RunDLL 0

• The File Explorer Options window will open. Go to the "View" tab.

• At the very bottom of the “Advanced Settings” list, uncheck the “Hide protected system files” item; below, set the switch to the “Show hidden files, folders and drives” position. Click OK.

Let's move on to deleting unnecessary files and folders:

• Open the system drive, go to the “Users” folder.

• Locate the folder named after your computer account. In our case, this is “vzgn”. Open it and then go to the "AppData" folder.

• “AppData” contains files of various programs - saves, cache, settings, logs, etc. There is also system data that is best not touched. In the “AppData” directory itself you can see 3 folders - “Local”, “LocalLow” and “Roaming”. Open, for example, "Local".

• There are quite a few subfolders stored here. The name usually corresponds to the name of the application that created it. Such folders can be safely deleted.

As in the case of uninstalling programs, if you have doubts about any of the folders nested in “AppData”, enter its name in Yandex or Google to get more accurate information about it.