Does CCleaner harm Vista?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MAT
  • Start date Start date
Chris said:
Well that may be an exaggeration, but the alternative explanation is
that there is a lot of detritus in the Windows installation left
over from development work that never got cleaned out!
Click to expand...


No, no exaggeration. The simple fact is that registry cleaners are
nothing but snake oil, to start with.


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Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

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BillD said:
for what stupid reason you should use an useless 3rd party application when
you can do the same things using the built-in Vista disk cleanup???
Click to expand...


Ah! But if one has a multi-user system, Vista's native tool would have
to be run from within each user profile. CCleaner allows one to clean
up all of the profiles, at once.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
 
Bruce I have somewhat disagreed with you before on this issue of hundreds of
alleged orphaned files etc. However, I recently did a clean install of Vista
Ultimate and, after updating etc, ran CCleaner's registry cleaner. I was
dismayed at the files that appeared - yes, as you say, hundreds, but this
has been the only time that they appeared for deletion. Subsequent runs of
CCleaners registry cleaner has only flagged a maximum of 4 files for
deletion.

I've run the CCleaner registry cleaner every day for the last two weeks but
still only a few files have been flagged. The only time I have experienced
'hundreds' of files for deletion is immediately after a clean install of the
operating system.

Is this where you are experiencing the massive list of files, I.e, directly
after doing a clean install, or are you getting a similarly large amount on
each run of the CCleaner registry cleaner?


--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

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Hi John and you all,
Please forgive my modest contribution from "old" Europe to this thread and
notwhithstanding the abyss that keeps apart the highly skilled professionnal
that you are, from the merely competent amateur that I dare believe I am, I
found exactly the same.
Regular use of CCleaner sieve out 4 files, very often the same. I put them
in the exclusions list. Now regular cleanups show nothing. However after an
install of Vista or Nero or any other major program, there is often a bunch
of files that are flagges.
 
The only ones I am now getting as standard are 'unused file extension
DDECache' and 'unused file extension OpenWithList.'

I haven't installed any major programs recently so I haven't I can't confirm
how many files are flagged after installing other software.

--
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John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
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Correct John.
I put the two registry entries in the exclusion list (options/exclude/add to
the register). And it works fine.
JL
 
Yes, JL, I will have to do that to stop the 'popping' up whenever the mood
takes them:-)

--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
MAT said:
Does CCleaner 2.0 http://www.ccleaner.com/ harm or destroy anything in
Vista or has anyone experienced problems in Vista after having used
CCleaner?
Click to expand...
Don't let it delete any registry keys without first reading the screen and
understanding what it's about to wipe. It is not 100% safe on registry
cleaning from my single experience - it removed wanted file associations to
pdf, jpg and ico along with others, and the built-in "backup" to restore its
changes wouldn't work in "normal" mode (may work in "Safe" mode.)

Do a Vista backup of the whole registry first (or create a Restore point).
 
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