Most people use the cleanup function in their browser to clear Temporary Internet Files.

In IE, click the Tools button, Select Internet Options, and on the general, in the Browsing History section tab click "Delete."

You'll get a search for things to delete, and then a window that lets you pick what to remove, before anything actually self-destructs.

You can get the same effect by right-clicking on your System Drive (C:\) in Windows explorer and click Properties. There should be a button there for "Disk Cleanup." Using this method sometimes will do a more complete cleanup, since your browser may have Temp Int files open, and an open file can't be deleted. Using the C:\ "Properties" with the browser not open can get just about everything.

Most Java stuff will show up in browser settings, and you can turn things on and off there. In IE, Tools|Internet Options|Programs Tab, there's a "Manage Add-ons" Button where you can allow/disallow Java applets and a few other kinds of "helpers."

On the Advanced tab, same place, there are a number of settings you can choose that may have some effect on how "clean" your machine stays; but you'll have to browse through them to see how you want things to work.

Vista may be a little bit better about some kinds of cleanup than WinXP, since a lot of stuff runs in the background, automatically, without the need to do it manually. It's rather difficult, in fact, to do a manual defrag, as one example; since Vista schedules a weekly (usually) defrag and it runs only when the drive is idle. You never see it happen - and should never need to do a manual defrag.

John