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cleaning duplicate files

I am probably a bad housekeeper. Often when making order in my disk I copied the files instead of transferring them from folder to folder.
Now I find a lot of duplicate or triplicate files, programs, documents, pictures etc clogging my disk.
Can you recommend a reliable and efficient tool, which will help me to find the duplicate files and clean my disk?
Thanks in advance

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nedvis

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BillDL

There are 2 ways I use to list duplicate files without actually installing anything to your system:

Method 1:
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If you know someone running Windows XP, just do a file find for "dupfinder.exe" and copy it to a floppy (or zip it up and have him/her email it to you).
Just double-click the file in any folder, even your desktop, and explore the options under the "View" menu.

Say you want to find all duplicate files of ALL types by file name, just set the Drive or folder to search, set the "Sort Order" to "By Name" from the View menu, and then use the "Options" sub-menu to set the "Files To Include" to *.*

Click the "Start" button and wait. From the list, you will have a Right-Click menu (or from the "File" menu) to Delete, Move, Rename, or show Info about.

Method 2:
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A handy utility file more than a duplicate file finder.

Insert your Windows 98 CD and hold the SHIFT key to stop it autorunning.
Browse to the folder x:\tools\reskit\file where you will find a file named "WHERE.EXE".
Although it looks like a DOS program file, it only runs in Windows Mode, but does so in a DOS Box.

Copy it to C:\Windows\Command where it will now be accessible just by typing the command WHERE in a DOS Window without having to say where it is.

To use Where.exe, you must know the command line options which you will be shown if you type WHERE /?

Say you want to list all *.jpg files in your "My Documents" folder and all sub-folders, and output the findings to a list file C:\Windows\TEMP\jpgs.txt:

where /r "c:\my documents" *.jpg > %TEMP%\jpgs.txt

Sample output:

C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\BillPaul.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\BillPaul2.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Britney Spears.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\catseyes.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Lanarkshire1.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Lanarkshire2.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Marjory.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Mustang.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Rebuilt_Fender.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\Reflections.jpg
C:\my documents\My Images\Miscellaneous\stormy_sea.jpg

I tend to use this for creating batch files to perform certain actions and, although it isn't really a duplicate file finder in the true sense of the expression, it groups the files alphabetically by file name as folder contents, so duplicate file names are easy to spot.

Hope this is helpful. You might as well try dupfinder.exe if you hate installing freeware/shareware/trialware.

Mohammed Hamada

A trail version of program, try it
http://noclone.net/

Another one:
http://www.ashisoft.com/

Here's a Dos program, Duplicate file finder..
http://www.filelibrary.com:8080/cgi-bin/freedownload/DOS/h/50/dfl340.zip

Enjoy deleting them.

BillDL

You're welcome, idrbooks