Clearing the cache of offline files in Windows 10. How to clear the cache on your computer - step-by-step instructions. What is Thumbnail Cache - thumbnail cache and what does resetting it mean?

Each of you has probably heard that Microsoft operating systems are gradually becoming cluttered and require clearing the cache. This happens for various reasons: for example, the accumulation of temporary files, browser activity, or traces of program installations.

In this article we will talk about how to clear the cache on a computer or laptop running Windows XP, 7, 8 or 10. You will learn about the types of temporary files, their location and, of course, options for cleaning, which we will do manually , using the OS itself or through additional software.

We “clean” the system

So, let's look at the process of clearing the cache on a computer or laptop with any operating system from Microsoft.

Cleaning RAM

Since the reliability and performance of the entire system depends on the correct and stable operation of the RAM, let’s start with cleaning it. Moreover, this is done very simply.

1. First, we will use the services of the universal utility “Run”. You can launch it using the hotkey combination Win + R. When the button click box appears in a small window, enter the command below into it and click OK.

For 32-bit systems:

For 64-bit systems:

Attention: in order to find out the bitness of your OS, use the hotkey combination Win+PauseBreak.

1. After the RAM memory has been cleaned, we’ll continue what we started with the task manager. Launch it by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting the desired item from the context menu.

1. Go to the “Processes” tab (active by default), sort the list by the amount of RAM consumed, select the process you want to stop, thus clearing the memory, and click “End task”.

Be careful: before you force quit a program, be sure to save all of its data, otherwise it may be lost.

System tools

The instructions you are reading are given using Windows 10 as an example, but everything can be done in a similar way in other operating systems. "Ten" and earlier versions of Microsoft operating systems have their own tools that allow you to clear temporary files (cache). It works like this:

1. We launch our explorer by clicking on the icon on the taskbar.

1. You can also open “This PC” through a search.

1. Right-click on the disk with the installed system and select “Properties” from the context menu.

1. Select the “General” tab and click on the button labeled “Cleaning”.

1. An assessment of your system partition will begin and depending on how large and cluttered it is, this may take a varying amount of time.

1. Next, check the boxes next to all the items (marked with the number “2”) and click the “Clean up system files” button.

Attention: this algorithm requires administrative rights in the user account.

1. Now again check the boxes next to the items that we want to clear and click “OK”.

1. A confirmation will appear in which we need to click on the button surrounded by a red frame.

Cleaning will begin, the duration of which may vary. It all depends on the amount of “garbage” in the system cache, the performance of a particular PC, etc.

This method is good for its security for the operating system, but it does not completely clear the computer’s cache. If you want to dig deeper, read our article further.

Removing junk from browsers

The browser is one of the most “garbage” places on our computer or laptop. The cache available here is constantly clogged with temporary files. Many of you have probably noticed how your browser starts to work slower and slower.

The fix is ​​quite simple. Below we have described the sequence of actions for each browser separately. But before you start, remember:

You can start cleaning in any browser using the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Del.

Opera

As we have already said, you can start clearing the cache in Opera by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Del at the same time. We do this and see a new window in which we should indicate the cleaning interval and what exactly we want to delete.

The following options exist:

• browsing history;
• download history;
• Cookies and other site data;
• image cache;
• passwords;
• autocomplete data;
• news data.

Important: Before deleting autofill data, please note that you will have to enter your browser passwords again.

Google Chrome

In the Google Browser, cleaning looks the same as in Opera. You specify the cleaning period and select the types of files to be deleted. Finally, click the “DELETE DATA” button.

Yandex browser

The situation is similar in the popular Yandex Browser. Press Ctrl + Shift + Del, select the period, decide what we will erase and confirm all this by clicking on the button marked “2”.

Mozilla Firefox

In Mozilla, the window for deleting cache from a PC looks a little different. However, the principle of its operation does not change much. The process is divided into 3 stages, each of which is marked with a number in the screenshot below.

Microsoft Edge

In the standard Windows 10 browser, they didn’t come up with anything - the same combination works here as in Opera, Chrome or Yandex Browser.

Internet Explorer

In conclusion, we show the cache clearing menu in Internet Explorer. The same combination of hot buttons applies here.

Cleaning the “Temp” folder manually

To make our Windows even more “clean,” you can visit the temporary files storage folder and check if there is anything unnecessary there.

Important: You will need administrator privileges to use the option below.

1. Open our explorer by clicking on the icon on the taskbar.

1. Let's go along the path:

1. If you are asked for superuser privileges, grant them.

1. Select all the files that are in “Temp” and delete them.

Before you start clearing temporary files, close all programs and save their data.

1. Confirm your intention to delete system files.

As a result, we are left with only a few text documents that cannot be deleted.

Clearing the DNS cache via the command line

1. Launch the command line as administrator. To do this, open the Windows search, enter the word “CMD” into it, click on the result indicated by the number “2” and select the option to run as administrator.

1. When the black window opens, enter the command below into it and press Enter.

After this, the DNS cache will be cleared in a split second.

Using additional software

When talking about clearing the cache on a computer or laptop, one cannot fail to mention programs that exist specifically for this purpose. There are a lot of them created and there is no way to list them all. Let’s also not create TOPs with a bunch of software and a couple of lines of description for each; it’s better to take the leader of computer cleaning and talk about its downloading, installation and proper operation.

Our “highlight” is called CCleaner. This is truly the best tool, which the developers did not burden with unnecessary functions. So, let's start the installation:

1. Initially, download CCleaner by visiting its official website and selecting the “Download Free Version” button there.

1. On the next page, click on the marked button again.

We all face a lot of problems when working with a computer, one of these problems is slowdown when performing different tasks or programs. Most often the reason for this is cache overfilled.

Cache is a system storage temporary data, an intermediate area that has quick access to information that is most likely to be requested. Data from the cache is accessed faster than fetching from a remote source or main memory, one of the disadvantages is the limited amount of data storage.

Why should you clear the cache on your PC? If you do not clean this memory in a timely manner, the accumulation of temporary files will turn into garbage, slowing down the system. Consequently performance will decrease operation of the entire computer.

Method to clear DNS cache

DNS cache is a special system designed to determine the correspondence of IP addresses and text names when used Internet. This is a domain name system, these names are data stored on your PC and provide maximum fast access upon further use, while reducing the load to the DNS servers themselves. How to clear the DNS cache? Everything is very simple, despite the complex name and definition. The following will provide instructions for all versions of Windows, step by step.

Thumbnails cache - clearing

This type of cache stores thumbnails of pictures on your computer, and when you reopen folders with pictures, they load much faster. To clear this memory you need:

Clearing the RAM cache

Clearing your computer's memory cache is one of our most important checks. It is cleaned with built-in system programs. There are two options.

After that, we name the shortcut as it is convenient for us and use it.

Cleaning with CCleaner

In order to make life easier for the average user, special programs have long been invented to clear the cache automatically. One of these programs is - CCleaner. This is a fast and multifunctional program that is designed to quickly delete all unnecessary files from the computer, clear folders and optimize work. The work process is very simple.

In the screen that opens, we can choose which elements to clean and which not to touch, all this can be left default.

How often should you clear the cache on your computer?

The cache on your computer needs to be cleared depending on its gradual filling, it is not necessary to do this every day, do not let files accumulate. It is better if you carry out preventive cleaning of cache files once a month, this is the optimal period when you can accumulate a sufficient number of outdated files.

All this is not individual, you can clear the cache based on your personal feelings about using your PC, if you see a loss of performance, then you should think about clearing it.

Whenever you run an update to the Windows 10 operating system, all available update installation files are automatically cached. This is done so that you can reapply Windows updates at any time without downloading them again. But the bad thing about this story is that the Windows update cache folder is constantly growing in size, eventually taking up all the usable space on your computer’s hard drive. Therefore, to avoid this, I offer you clear step-by-step instructions, How to delete the entire update cache in Windows 10 (Windows Update).

Removing the Windows Update Cache

Clearing the update cache isn't a difficult task, but it's also not as easy as it should be. Yes, you can use the standard system Disk Cleanup utility, but it does not remove the Windows Update cache completely, so I recommend that you use the following manual method.

1. First, you need to stop the Windows Update service. To do this, click the search button 🔎 (located next to the start button) on your desktop and enter the search phrase “services”. Then, right-click on the found application Services and run it as administrator.

After that, in the list of all services on your system, find the service Windows Update, right-click on it and select the option Stop. This action stops the Windows Update service completely.

2. After stopping the Windows Update service, press the keyboard shortcut Win+R, enter this path into the window that appears: C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ and click the button Enter.

This is the same folder in which Windows 10 stores all files related to operating system updates. Go to the folder Download, select all the files in it and delete them. The system may ask for administrator rights to perform this operation, but you just click on the button Continue to complete the procedure.

3. If you want to get even more free disk space, you can also delete files in the folder DeliveryOptimization. But before you do this, you need to disable the feature Windows Delivery Optimization. To do this, find the application Check for Updates in the manner described in step No. 1 and open it.

In the window Update&Security on the left select the item Windows Update and click on the link Advanced options.

Once the advanced options window opens, click on the link .

In the window that opens, click on the button below to disable the function in Windows 10 Delivery Optimization.

After turning off this feature, press on your keyboard again Win+R, enter the following path C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DeliveryOptimization and click the button Enter.

When the folder opens, select all the files in it (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A) and delete them (button Delete on keyboard).

The processor's cache is such a very important thing, which contains everything that the processor previously worked with - that is, instructions. Therefore, we can conclude that the more it is, the cooler it is, that is, your percentage works quickly and without brakes.

If it is not enough, then the processor will often work with the RAM, and it is slower than the processor cache, so you will see this as brakes in Windows. Although to me and many others, it seems that the RAM is almost reactive =)

The processor cache shows itself very well when running similar programs, then a large percentage of instructions will be in the processor cache itself, but of course if it is not too small.

Look, the cache of the Q9650 processor (socket 775, Yorkfield) is 12 MB, while the top model i7 (socket 1150, Haswell) has 8 MB, which turns out to be a third less. But i7 is more productive than Q9650, how is that possible? The thing is that the cache memory can also differ in speed, and in the Q9650 it is lower relative to the i7. for example, in my processor, which is a Pentium G3220, there is a 3 MB cache, although many Pentium D models (and this is 2008) had 4 MB - but they are still less productive than mine.

Okay, let's get back to the topic itself, namely how to view the processor cache in Windows 10.

Now Windows 10 has a lot of everything in the manager, both necessary and not, in general it has become much more interesting, there are really a lot of convenient graphs, and there is information about the process - its frequency, how many cores, and of course the cache.

In general, go to the task manager, you can right-click on the taskbar and select the item we need there:

The task manager will open (if it is empty or there is little of everything, there are no tabs, then you need to click the button More details, it will be in the lower left corner), in which you need to select the tab Performance and click there CPU. And there it will be written how big the processor cache is:

As you can see, I already wrote, I have 3 MB written there, this is the cache size of my processor.

If you use the services of medium and small providers, you can often witness bugs in the operation of their DNS servers. This may be due to incorrect settings, problems with the hardware, or errors by the administrators themselves. And the users pay for it, of course. In the best case, instead of the necessary sites, it will display “Server not found”; in the worst case, it will start throwing out to all sorts of incomprehensible sites, incl. even harmful in nature. And so you changed the addresses of the DNS servers and... the same thing continues. What to do? You just need to clear the Windows client's DNS cache.

There are two ways to reset the DNS cache:

Method 1: Command Line

Click the “Start” button and write the phrase “Command Prompt”. It makes no difference - Windows 7 or Windows 8, or even Windows 10 - in all versions the search will start and in its results there will be a command line shortcut. Click on it and get a black console window. You need to write the command in it:

And press the Enter button. It should look like this:

If everything went well, the result should be the message “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”. This means that clearing the DNS cache was successful.
You can also run the command to be sure:

This will reset Winsock settings. Sometimes this helps too.

If you have any problems with the command line, or you need to frequently clear the DNS cache, then use this bat file - download .

Method 2: Restart Windows DNS Client

Pressing the buttons Win And R and get the “Run” window:

In it we type: services.msc and click the “OK” button. Thus, we launched the Windows service management system console. Here you need to find a service DNS client:

Click on it with the mouse to highlight it and click on the “Restart” link, indicated by the arrow in the figure. After restart it will happen reset Windows DNS cache.