CCleaner

[Bill]

John Barnette recommended CCleaner as a useful tool
in keeping Registry issues and Temporary Internet files
cleaned up. It seems to do exactly that. However, there's
one area that I'd like to have CCleaner leave alone and
that is recently used files by MS Office components. E.g.,
recently used WORD and EXCEL file history is deleted
during a clean-up. So far, I've not been able to find a
"handle" where I can exclude such files.

I can't post the question on the CCleaner website and
was hoping someone at this forum had encountered the
same problem and found out how to control this issue.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[JS]

Have you looked in the 'Applications' tab, you should see a section there
for Office and uncheck the boxes.

JS

 

[Bruce Chambers]

John Barnette recommended CCleaner as a useful tool
in keeping Registry issues and Temporary Internet files
cleaned up. It seems to do exactly that. However, there's
one area that I'd like to have CCleaner leave alone and
that is recently used files by MS Office components. E.g.,
recently used WORD and EXCEL file history is deleted
during a clean-up. So far, I've not been able to find a
"handle" where I can exclude such files.

I can't post the question on the CCleaner website and
was hoping someone at this forum had encountered the
same problem and found out how to control this issue.

Thanks,
Bill

CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as you
step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it
really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let the
application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed, and
certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files.

CCleaner's only real strength, and the only reason I use it, lies
in its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard
drive; as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse
than any other snake oil product of the same type.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bill]

Found it!
Thanks,
Bill

Have you looked in the 'Applications' tab, you should see a section there
for Office and uncheck the boxes.

JS

 

[JS]

You're Welcome.

JS

Found it!
Thanks,
Bill

 

[Poprivet]

CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as
you step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if
it really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let
the application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed,
and certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries
and dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files.

CCleaner's only real strength, and the only reason I use it, lies
in its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard
drive; as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse
than any other snake oil product of the same type.

That's not necessarily unexpected with a brand new install; any examples of
the kinds of things it found and the magnitudes of the problems?

Pop`

 

[Bruce Chambers]

That's not necessarily unexpected with a brand new install; any examples of
the kinds of things it found and the magnitudes of the problems?

On the contrary, how could there possibly be orphaned registry entries
if no applications had been installed/uninstalled? Are you saying that
Microsoft deliberately places bogus entries in the registry by default?
There'd be entries for non-installed legacy applications that had been
included for backwards compatibility, but these are definitely not
"orphaned," nor are they "issues" of any sort. They're there by design.
CCleaner was unable to recognize this, so how could it possibly be
trusted to recognize a real problem? The allegedly "suspicious files
were all *.dll's that came with the OS.

To me, under those specific circumstances, that means that CCleaner was
100% wrong.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Peter Foldes]

I use CCleaner for deleting tmp files. As far as the Registry Cleaner part of CCeaner I would not use it. If you do not know the Registry then do not touch it. It can cause more problems than you need.

 

[Stan Brown]

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:27:37 -0600 from Bruce Chambers

CCleaner's only real strength, and the only reason I use it, lies
in its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the
hard drive

I don't understand -- why is a program needed for that?

I use
Start | Run | %TEMP%
and just delete everything in sight -- XP won't let me delete
anything that's in use.

What am I missing?

 

[Unknown]

If you buy a computer from a vendor such as Lenovo (formerly IBM) with
Windows preinstalled you'll find at least 360
orphaned entries in the registry.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I don't understand -- why is a program needed for that?

I use
Start | Run | %TEMP%
and just delete everything in sight -- XP won't let me delete
anything that's in use.

What am I missing?

About 90% of the temporary files on the hard drive. Take a look in
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files, for example. Hint: WinXP treats this folder as a "Protected
Operating System" folder, so you'll have to enable Explorer to even see
it. Unless you've set IE's Temporary File size, this folder will likely
hold up to 500Mb of files, scraps from every web page you've visited.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

If you buy a computer from a vendor such as Lenovo (formerly IBM) with
Windows preinstalled you'll find at least 360
orphaned entries in the registry.

Perhaps, but that's not how I tested CCleaner. I performed a clean
installation using a WinXP Pro SP2 installation CD, and installed
nothing else but CCleaner. Hadn't even downloaded any Windows Updates.
Hadn't installed any anti-virus software, etc. There was nothing on
the hard drive but the pristine OS and CCleaner, and it still managed to
provide hundreds of false positives. Its registry "cleaner" is *NOT* to
be trusted.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Unknown]

Investigate about 10 of those 'false positives'. If like mine, they can be
deleted.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Investigate about 10 of those 'false positives'. If like mine, they can be
deleted.

The point is: They're *false* positives, and there's absolutely *no*
reason to delete them. And certainly no assurance that they won't serve
a critical need at some time in the future.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Poprivet]

So ... since you ignored the stated question, I assume there is no further
info forthcoming. My interest and curiousity are legitimate, but I don't
plan to bite into what looks like a closed-minded response such as you gave
because those only degenerate into syntactical arguements as a rule. With
your reasonably experienced rep, I expected better of you.
You can consider the question withdrawn and I'll keep my experiences to
myself also.

Regards,

Pop`

 

[Unknown]

My point is that they're there. How did they get there? What is their
purpose? Why so many?.

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:09:38 -0600 from Bruce Chambers

About 90% of the temporary files on the hard drive. Take a look in
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files, for example. Hint: WinXP treats this folder as a "Protected
Operating System" folder, so you'll have to enable Explorer to even see
it. Unless you've set IE's Temporary File size, this folder will likely
hold up to 500Mb of files, scraps from every web page you've visited.

It's not an issue, since I don't use IE but prefer a Web browser.

So what else am I missing? I'm not trying to be argumentative -- I'd
really like to know.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:09:38 -0600 from Bruce Chambers


It's not an issue, since I don't use IE but prefer a Web browser.

IE is a web browser.

So what else am I missing? I'm not trying to be argumentative -- I'd
really like to know.

Since you didn't care to divulge which other "Web Browser" you use, I
can't very well tell you where it stores it's temporary files. It'll
obviously be in a different location. Check it's settings.

In principle, though, you're correct. It isn't actually necessary to
use a 3rd party program to clean up temporary files. It's just quicker
than seeking them out and deleting them so manually, as there can easily
be temporary files stored in any number of locations, because many
applications don't always use the Windows defaults. (Even Windows
built-in disk cleanup utility cleans only the current user profile. It
doesn't take into account the fact that there may be multiple users of
the computer, and that not all of those users will have the necessary
privileges to run Disk Cleanup.)


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

My point is that they're there. How did they get there? What is their
purpose? Why so many?.

On a fresh install, there are *no* orphaned registry entries, by
definition. There are currently unused entries intended to provide
backwards compatibility with commonly used third party applications. If
you know with 100% certainty that you will never, ever install the
related application, the entry is safe to delete its corresponding
registry entry. Doing so won't gain you any performance, but if it
helps your peace of mind, go ahead.

A more important question would be: Why do purported registry
"cleaners" invariably identified designed-in parts of the registry as
"problems" or "issues?" Have none of the makers of these utilities ever
actually looked at a freshly installed OS to see what's supposed to be
there? It would be so simple for them to start at that base point, list
those entries as "safe," and proceed from there.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Unknown]

I can only give you my experience on two computers. (Current one is number
3). I used a registry cleaner written by someone in Finland on my first
Windows 95 computer. It was a free download. I deleted about 370 items from
the registry with no problem whatsoever. I noticed the computer ran faster.
On my second computer (Windows 98) I did the same and result was the same.
However I kept a note of some of the items I removed and later installed
them with no problem. I also noticed a speedup but not as much.
My present computer is Windows XP. I do not use the registry cleaner because
it is no longer free. I did use a free registry cleaner (which cleaned out
about 250 entries) and then manually searched for and deleted many items I
do not want and will not use. Some were Netscape, Norton, AOL, Symantec,
Yahoo etc. I did not notice any improvement in computer speed. I must also
point out that a re-install of XP puts all of them back in.