A mini tutorial for beginners
CLEARING THE CACHE 101
This is one of a number of mini tutorials that I plan on publishing in an effort to help beginner’s gain some knowledge and feel comfortable making changes to their GUI (Graphical User Interface). In this one, we will take a look at a useful option referred to as "Clearing the Cache".
Clearing the cache is a procedure which will allow you to force a program to load using the default startup settings. The cache is used by the Operating System and relevant program to load the program using any preferences the user has applied to it. For instance, if you are experiencing issues with a theme or widget behaving strangely, clearing the cache will allow the theme or widget to load using its default settings which the user can then modify as needed.
Note – I have created these tutorials using Windows XP with the default installation settings, so if you are using Windows 2000, you will need to locate the control panel options differently.
STEP #1 – Click the Start button > select Control Panel > click the Appearance and Themes category, and then click on the "Folder Options" link indicated in the image below.
STEP #2 – Click the View tab > select "Show hidden files and folders", and then click "Apply" as shown in the image below.
STEP #3 – Click the Start button > click My Computer > open the Local Disk (C:) > open the Documents and Settings folder > open your account folder (the one with your user name) > open the Local Settings folder > open the Application Data folder > open the Stardock folder.
The image below shows the contents of a typical Stardock cache folder (depending on which programs you have installed, you may have additional or fewer folders in the Stardock cache folder). To clear the cache, you just need to delete the folder for the program you want to clear. Note – the program for which you are clearing the cache must be unloaded (closed) before clearing the cache.
The DesktopX folder may contain folders for both Widgets and Current Theme. If you want to clear a specific widget, you can open the widget folder and delete the folder bearing the widget name. To clear the theme, delete the "Current Theme" folder.
In both images for Step #3, I have used the USERNAME label (indicated by the cursor arrow) to illustrate the position in the address where your user name should be.
Again, after clearing the cache, you can start the program and you should see the default start-up for that program.
I hope you found this mini tutorial useful. Until next time, have fun and "Keep On Customizing". 