CCLean

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It seems that a number of Woody experts consider CClean to be very good at cleaning registers etc.
As a novice when it comes down to ‘special tools’ can you advise me if it is easy to use and without problems according to your experiences.
I use Vista HP.
Thanks Ron

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I don’t understand why anyone runs any of these utilities. The benefits are not proven and sometimes they can cause problems.

Some older versions of windows had problems when the registry got too big, but I have seen no evidence that anyone gets any significant benefit from registry cleaners with Windows XP or Vista. Many people will offer stories about how wonderful particular tools are, but nobody has produced any measured results to demonstrate these improvements.

StuartR

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It’s name is CCleaner. It is very easy to use and it has several functions:
– Removing “unnecessary” files from your hard disk, such as temporary files, browsing history, lists of recently used files, etc. (You can specify in general terms what to delete and what to keep)
– Removing unused and incorrect registry entries.

I think the former is more useful than the latter.

See Quick Tour and Screenshots to get an idea of what it does and what it looks like.

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You may see here or in other forums that “my system seems faster” or “I’ve not had any problems” from those who regularly run a registry cleaner. HOWEVER, no one has been able to show quantifiable results from running a registry cleaner regularly on a modern Windows system. I would avoid that feature unless you have specific problems with the PC (and ‘running slowly’ does not count). As Hans indicated, a tool such as Ccleaner can be useful to clean up your system.

Joe

--Joe

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I agree – cleaning the registry doesn’t have much effect, if any.

But cleaning up temporary files does help – I’ve seen PCs where Word and Excel were slow as molasses because the Temp folder contained hundreds of thousands of files, going back 6 years or so. Clearing the Temp folder made a tremendous difference.
Of course one can delete them manually, but a program such as CCleaner offers a convenient way to perform many such housekeeping chores in one go.

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I do regularly clear out my temporary files, but many of these can’t be deleted whilst you are logged in so I find it easiest to log in as a different user and delete the ENTIRE folders at
C:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsTemp
and
C:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsTemporary Internet Files

StuartR

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CCleaner marks files that are locked (such as the index.dat file in TIF) for deletion on next startup. Another advantage is that it “knows” about many obscure locations for temporary files.

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Yes, I agree with periodically cleaning up the other files & folders you mentioned. That is the first thing I do when family or friends have me look at a PC that is not running as expected.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks for all your inputs … I think that I will adopt the policy of ‘if it ain’t broken then why fix it’.
With regard to temp files I do this from time to time via the ‘Clean Up Disc’ process and for the IE7 I use Tools/Delete Browsing History/Delete All. I guess that doing all this keeps the pc reasonably ‘clean’ … at least I hope so!
Ron

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Ron,
Years ago, there was a song called, “To Each His Own”.

I’ll use the cleaners regularly even though I can’t provide a “measurable” index of improvement, It makes ME feel better. I DO feel they make a difference in the system operation and CCleaner is one of the faster and safer of the utilities.

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… and that’s a good enough reason, Bob.
Thanks for your reply.
Ron

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