CCleaner

From ElateWiki

1 Cleaning off Excess Files
2 Starting the Program
3 Registry Integrity
4 Where to Download
5 See Also
6 References

Cleaning off Excess Files

PC users who would like to clean off extra unused and temp files from their computers (particularly those left by browser searches and downloads) in an efficient way may try Piriform’s CCleaner, which comes highly recommended and apparently has accrued some 500 million downloads since its inception. This frees up the hard drive to enable a more efficient running of the Windows OS. (This runs on Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, and 98, including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

http://www.piriform.com/

Starting the Program

Double click on the CCleaner icon to start the program.

Click on the “Run Cleaner” button at the bottom right. You will be asked if you wish to proceed with the program permanently deleting files from your system.

Click “OK” if you agree.

You should close any browsers that you may have open. (If you choose to leave the browsers open, you may just have the software clean off files from the areas which are not active.)

This software will clean off the temporary files and related to your browsers, and your Windows Explorer, your Windows system. However, the free version does not allow for Advanced cleaning.

Registry Integrity

This software also enables scanning for Registry Integrity. This is an advanced feature which allows users to remove unused files from the registry, including "File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more...," according to the software maker's site.

Click on the “Scan for Issues” button. Issues that are found will be listed in the table. In the next step, you may click on the “Fix selected issues” to address the found issues.

The Tools button to the left allows this program to uninstall programs from the system, which is not advisable unless you’re fully certain that you no longer want access to a particular software program.