![]() We hit "Fix selected issues," and after saying we wanted the registry backed up, a dialog box asked whether to fix each specific registry issue or go ahead and do all 498 of them! We elected to do them all. After five or six minutes of scanning we got a list of hundreds of unused file extensions, issues with uninstaller references, obsolete software keys, missing shortcuts and ActiveX/Common Object Model problems. ![]() ![]() Next we went to the Issues section, which deals with registry problems. This isn't just disk space, it is disk space used by systems stuff that is unneeded or wrong, so getting rid of it is all about performance. Some 20 minutes later CCleaner had recovered over a gigabyte of disk space. "What the hell?" we thought, "we'll let 'er rip!" and hit the Run Cleaner button. So, we ran the Analyze option and after about 20 minutes had a long list displayed in the report pane. Under the Applications section, there are options for Firefox/Mozilla, Opera, various applications, Internet (Google toolbars and Sun Java), Multimedia, Utilities (such as Spybot and VNCviewer), and various Microsoft applications. This is a major spring cleaning and a very thorough privacy purge. For example, under Internet Explorer there are options for: cleaning up temporary files, cookies, browsing history, recently typed URLs deleting index.dat files erasing the last download location and purging autocompleted forms history. For example, you have options to examine the attributes of Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and the System, and there's an Advanced section for more obscure features. Selecting Cleaner (the default option on startup) lets you choose which Windows components and applications you want to clean up. With Cleaner selected, there also are buttons for Analyze (that is, examine but don't do anything) and Run Cleaner (that is, cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war on my copy of Windows). The left-most column shows the main functions: Cleaner, Issues, Tools and Options the second column shows the settings for the selected function and the third displays a progress bar and report panel. When you launch the program you'll see a user interface divided into three columns. That's a shame, because the original name is more accurate. The original name of CCleaner was "Crap Cleaner" and the developer, Piriform, apparently regrets the original name and is trying to rebrand the product to be just CCleaner. A few of you wrote in to say that when it came to cleaning up the digital sludge in the Windows registry and other system and application areas, there was joy to be found using the free utility CCleaner. Last week we discussed cleaning up the cruft that is causing the rampant Winrot in our PC.
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