By Bryan Keadle

In this article I suggest a way to delete language directories for those of us that have only one language (English in my case), and don't need to accommodate other languages.

Related to this, often there our hundreds (if not thousands) of language-related files that are also consuming disk space, which may not be contained within a language directory. These files are often suffixed with a 2-character abbreviation for the language. You can compose a Windows search string to find these files and delete them.

1. Bring up a Windows search dialog

• Enter this text in the Search for files... dialog (for all non-English files):
  
  
  *_ar.*; *_be.*; *_br.*; *_ch.*; *_cs.*; *_ct.*; *_cz.*; *_de.*; *_dk.*; *_es.*; *_fr.*; *_gb.*; *_he.*; *_it.*; *_ja.*; *_jp.*; *_ko.*; *_kr.*; *_ma.*; *_nl.*; *_no.*; *_pl.*; *_pt.*; *_ru.*; *_su.*; *_sv.*; *_zh_*
  
  (keep sys:\login\iscsi_no.gif)
  
  
  
  *_af.*; *_da.*; *_en_AU.*; *_en_CA.*; *_en_GB.*; *_fi.*; *_fr_BE.*; *_fr_CA.*; *_fr_FR.*; *_fr_CH.*; *_ga.*; *_de_AT.*; *_de_DE.*; *_de_CH.*; *_el.*; *_hu.*; *_is.*; *_it_IT.*; *_it_CH.*; *_iw.*; *_pt_PT.*; *_es_ES.*
  
  
  
  *.ar; *.br; *.cs; *.ct; *.cz; *.de; *.dk; *.es; *.fr; *.he; *.it; *.iw; *.ja; *.jp; *.ko; *.kr; *.ma; *.nl; *.no; *.pt; *.pt-br; *.ru; *.su; *.sv; *.zh
  
  
  
  *.ar.*; *.br.*; *.cs.*; *.ct.*; *.cz.*; *.de.*; *.dk.*; *.es.*; *.fr.*; *.he.*; *.it.*; *.iw.*; *.ja.*; *.jp.*; *.ko.*; *.kr.*; *.ma.*; *.nl.*; *.no.*; *.pl.*; *.pt.*; *.pt-br.*; *.ru.*; *.su.*; *.sv.*; *.zh.*
  
  
  
  *_ca.*
  
  (keep all popup_ca.html files)
  
  
  
  *.utf8 (one java file is kept)
  
  

• Specify your "Look in" volume (UNC path or mapped drive)

• In the results, do a Ctrl A to select all the found files.

• *DON'T HIT DELETE!!...YET. *REVIEW* the results before you delete all the files! There might be legitimate, non-language-related files found that meet the search criteria. You'll notice that the language related files are often grouped together in the results, which makes it relatively easy to identify them. Deselect the legitimate files by holding down the CTRL key and click on the file(s) to exclude from being deleted.

• You can now delete the rest of the selected files. If you have the SendTo extension installed that allows you to Send To/Clipboard as Name, you can do this prior to deleting the files, then paste all the selected filenames into NOTEPAD as a log of files deleted.

• You can save this search by going to File/Save Search. Specify a file name (Otherlanguages.fnd). You can then simply launch the .FND file to pre-populate the search criteria for another time.

You may be surprised by how much space you're able to free up by getting rid of these unused language files.

ASIDE: Actually, the SendTo extension referenced in Step 6 is *SO USEFUL*, I'll include this free extender as a download to this article. Simply right-click on the SendToX.INF and select Install. You will now have several new SendTo options, including:

• Any Folder...

• Clipboard as Contents

• Clipboard as Name

• Command Line

You will soon find how handy these are, especially the Any Folder... extension. You'll likely require this extension to be on all your computers as it's hard to be without once you have it! Enjoy!