Author Topic: DONE: Scan computer for foreign language files (Read 25,619 times)

wreckedcarzz · « **on:** February 10, 2009, 01:36 AM »

OK, here is a task that I hope someone can take on:

I need a program, somewhat like how DelEmpty works, for finding non-EN-US (changeable, for others) language files (INI, XML, etc) and listing them for review and one-click deletion. Is it possible to do this? If so, would there be any risks or drawbacks (other than not being able to switch from US English (or <your_language_here>)?

Any takers?

f0dder · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2009, 03:21 AM »

1) it'd be very hard to detect this (reliably, anyway)
2) there's a big chance of breaking stuff
3) disk space savings would be extremely small

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #2 on:** February 12, 2009, 09:32 PM »

Its more or less just something that bugs me - I don't see why installers ask you for the Language you want just to go and install them all anyways. It's just those stupid files that you never use kind of thing. But yea, I didn't figure it was doable (at least, in any simple manner).

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** February 12, 2009, 10:04 PM »

Well, it does have the "advantage" that if you suddenly one morning wake up and feel French (DOYC forbid!), you'd be able to switch your installed programs over

I know where you're coming from wrt. not liking unnecessary crud being installed, I used to be pretty nazi about that (up to and including Win98 SE I knew what every single file on my harddrive was used for... with Win2k I knew about most of it... With the introduction of XP I had a rough idea... and now I pretty much have given up and don't care

).

Anyway, language files/resources are usually pretty tiny, so I wouldn't worry about it. The biggest I've seen is "closecaption_french.txt" from Left4Dead, which is ~3MB.

dtsouers · « **Reply #4 on:** October 19, 2012, 03:16 AM »

The space saving is the not that great, unless your are counting windows system files which there are usually distributed in multiple languages (see windows\winsxs and windows\software distribution)
On the otherhand SSD's benefit greatly from having less entries in the allocation tables. If you sync that folder, is also runs much quicker.

I wrote a small utility that does this.

Ath · « **Reply #5 on:** October 19, 2012, 06:33 AM »

Quote from: dtsouers on October 19, 2012, 03:16 AM

I wrote a small program that does this.

Care to share a link?

dtsouers · « **Reply #6 on:** October 20, 2012, 01:15 AM »

- Install Microsoft .Net 2.0 SP2 on your computer.
- Make a full backup of your computer.
- Right-Click the app and click 'Run this program as administrator'.
- Wait, it will take a few minutes to run, even on my fast computer. Its scanning your entire drive.
- Review the files to delete, you can select only the ones you want to.

Some files may not be able to be deleted. You may have to download the Take Ownership of this File batch file found below:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

I would advise you to only remove a few of them at a time. Then run a few checks here and there.

DelLangFiles v0.0.1.1 build 11/23/12
DelReadmeFiles v0.0.1.0 build 11/29/12

Rick998 · « **Reply #7 on:** October 22, 2012, 12:15 AM »

dtsouers,

Thank you! This is an excellent utility, it works well.

Any chance you could change selection of individual entries from double-click to single-click and add shift-select so it wasn't necessary to select each entry individually?

highend01 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 22, 2012, 09:09 AM »

It would be nice if it would allow to specify the drive which should be searched.

dtsouers · « **Reply #9 on:** October 23, 2012, 02:17 AM »

Additions have been added!

Rick998 · « **Reply #10 on:** October 23, 2012, 07:08 AM »

dtsouers,

Wow! Thank you so much for additions and speedy response. Very much appreciated!

pilgrim · « **Reply #11 on:** November 17, 2012, 03:40 PM »

dtsouers,

I have only just found this thread and your utility and wanted to say thanks.

Removing foreign language files is something I started doing when I bought a Netbook and when I found out how many there were I have since done the same on my other computers.

I have just run your utility on my main computer and apart from system files only two programs, both recently updated, had any.
If I had found the utility before it would have saved me a couple of hours.

The only ongoing problem is Firefox extensions, NoScript alone has over 50 language files. I get at those with 7-Zip.

Thanks again.

skwire · « **Reply #12 on:** November 17, 2012, 04:30 PM »

Nice work, dtsouers.

I'm going to mark this thread as done and move it to the Finished Programs section.

dtsouers · « **Reply #13 on:** November 22, 2012, 03:50 AM »

Just wanted to let you know, I updated the program in the prior post.
It should now scan faster and find a few more missed language files.

Rick998 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 23, 2012, 12:25 AM »

I love how this utility has matured. A final tweak for me would be for the 'Pwn!' button to be renamed to something like 'Do it!', 'Delete' or 'Remove' and placed to the right of the 'Select All' button of a slightly widened default main dialog. For example:
[attach]

dtsouers · « **Reply #15 on:** November 23, 2012, 05:54 AM »

Your additions have been added.

Pilgrim-Which files are these?

pilgrim · « **Reply #16 on:** November 23, 2012, 08:55 AM »

Quote from: dtsouers on November 23, 2012, 05:54 AM

Your additions have been added.

Pilgrim-Which files are these?

To indicate the one I mentioned above the location in Windows 7 is:
C:\Users\Pilgrim\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\sheq54fh.default\extensions\{73a6fe31-595d-460b-a920-fcc0f8843232}\chrome\noscript.jar\locale\
In XP the path is through Documents and Settings.

To edit the file and remove the unwanted language files I have to use 7-Zip.
Nearly all FF extensions are the same but some only have one or two language files, No-Script with over 50 is one of the highest counts.

EDIT

I just ran your latest version and it appears that it is picking up at least some of these folders as it found:
C:\Users\Pilgrim\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\sheq54fh.default\extensions\{d37dc5d0-431d-44e5-8c91-49419370caa1}\chrome\locale\
When I ran the program it left the ES and MN files.
I noticed when the program opens there are a number of languages it omits, is there any way to have an option to only leave English?

Many thanks.

dtsouers · « **Reply #17 on:** November 24, 2012, 09:17 PM »

Hmm, I'll have to download Firefox and think of a good way to do that.

I did cobble together a new utility to remove readme files too, and have added that to the prior post.

pilgrim · « **Reply #18 on:** November 25, 2012, 01:26 PM »

I do not know if later versions are any different but I still use FF 3.6.28 as I will not get involved in Mozilla's pissing contest with Google Chrome.

I just ran your 'readme' utility on my Netbook (XP) and I'm sure I heard a sigh of relief from the speakers.

To go back to the language files, the only ones I have left, apart from the few the program excludes, are Windows files in Windows 7.
I tried taking ownership of them but the first attempt made no difference. There are only a couple of dozen of them and one batch is under C:\BOOT.
I ran an online search and found this: http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/delete-unused-language-folders-cboot-windows-7/ which might be of interest to some.

Rick998 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 25, 2012, 02:33 PM »

DelReadmeFiles is another excellent utility! Thank you. I was amazed how many readme.txt files it found.

PS - DelLangFiles keeps English, Spanish, French, German and Italian by default. Any chance we could create our own default? For example, I would like to be able to remove ALL language support except for English so an option to do that (checkbox in menu bar? INI file?) would be great. For example:
[attach]

Rick998 · « **Reply #20 on:** December 01, 2012, 01:26 PM »

dtsouers, the recent update to DelReadmeFiles, i.e. selection of license/EULA files, is excellent! Many thanks for adding this functionality.

These two utilities just keep getting better and better.