The Duplicate File Finder finds duplicate files on your computer.  This will help clean your computer by showing you if you have two or more of the same program installed on your computer, thus allowing you to delete extra ones. 

It will also show backups.  Backups are good to have, but they should be kept on a different drive than the original file.

 

1.  In the listbox of drives, select which drives you want to compare.  You may select only one drive or you can select many.  To select many, hold down on the Ctrl button as you select.  By default, the internal harddrives are selected.  To the right you may specify drives to limit the comparison to or drives to skip.

 

2.  Set the options.  The first thing to select is whether to compare all files or only certain files.  Use the wildcards, * and ?, and letters to specify a type of file.  For example, *.txt would compare all text files which have the extension, .txt.

The other checkboxes define what will be compared.

· Require Same Name - this would require identical files to have the same filename, but not all identical files have identical filenames, so it is best not to check this one.

· Require Same Size - when checked, the file sizes are compared first before a byte by byte comparison is made.  If the file sizes are not the same, no comparison is made.  It is best to check this.

· Require Same Date - when checked, identical files that have different dates on them are not considered duplicates.

· Treat Diskette as Master - this applies only if a diskette is one of the drives selected to be compared.  When checked, a list is made of all of the files on the diskette and then those files are searched for in the harddrive.  When unchecked, a list is made of all files in the selected drives and then they are compared.

· Skip the Desktop.ini Folder - skips the desktop.ini directory because backups may be kept in this directory.

· Skip the SYSBCKUP Folder - skips the sysbckup directory because backups may be kept in this directory.

· Skip Files that are of 0 length - all files of 0 length are identical in content, so not checking this one and not checking "Require Same Name" above would find all 0 length files.  It is best to check this one.

The recommended settings for this section are the default settings.  To reset this section to the default settings, click on the "Set All to Default" button.

 

3.  Start Search for Duplicates - on this tab the basic parameters of the search are shown above the "Find Duplicates" button.  When you are ready to start the search, click on the "Find Duplicates" button.  The search will begin and the directory being searched will be shown at the bottom of the page.  During this search a list of all of the files on the selected drives is made.  Anytime during the search, you can stop the process by clicking on the Stop button.  When the search is completed, the next tab will be displayed.

 

4.  View Results - When the search on the previous tab is completed, the files are compared starting with the biggest.  As duplicates are found, they are displayed along with their size, date, and attributes in the listbox.  To stop the comparison, click on the Stop button at the top.  To find out more about a file, double click on it.  To delete a file, select it and click on the "Delete Selected Files" button.

Clicking on the "Find Duplicates" button at the top will restart the search and then comparison.

We recommend that files not be deleted from this section, but that instead you use this section to point out whole directories which may need to be deleted because they are duplicates.