Maintenance Wizard/Windows 98 Second Edition 

Any computer needs to have some sort of regular maintenance. With the Maintenance wizard your computer can practically maintain itself.

Over time, as programs read from and write to your computer's hard disk, the hard disk stores the information wherever it can find room. Rather than storing files of information in side-by-side clusters, the disk splits up, or fragments, the files into noncontiguous clusters. This fragmentation is normal, but the more fragmented the files on your computer's hard disk become, the harder it gets for your computer to read and write information. A fragmented hard disk equals a slower, less efficient computer. And that's not good.

That's why Microsoft^™ Windows^™ 98 Second Edition includes the Maintenance wizard, which performs the following three tasks automatically, or at times that you schedule:

• Disk Defragmenter
  This maintenance task rearranges your computer's hard disk by placing all the files associated with a given program in the same location on the hard disk. When Disk Defragmenter is used regularly, your computer can locate and open your programs faster, rather than having to search the disk for what it needs.
• ScanDisk
  Windows 98 Second Edition runs this utility automatically whenever your computer's operating system is shut down improperly or your hard disk indicates that it is faulty. You can also run ScanDisk at any time to check your computer's files, folders, data structures, and the surface of the disk for errors. It finds and fixes errors, helping you regain unused disk space and making your computer run more efficiently.
• Disk Cleanup
  As its name implies, this program cleans your computer's hard disk by removing files you don't need, and lets you know when your hard disk is getting full. When this happens it provides a list of files that you may want to delete, including files in the Recycle Bin, files you downloaded during Web browsing that you no longer need, and Windows 98 Second Edition uninstall information files (when you're confident that you won't need to reinstall your old operating system). It doesn't allow you to delete files that your computer needs, or move system components to the wrong place.