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Is CCleaner Safe To Run On Windows 7 & 8.1


tlcmd

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I've seen and heard various comments on running CCleaner on Windows Opereating Systems. Is CCleaner safe to run on Windows 7 & 8,1? Both the file cleaner and the registry cleaner?

 

Thanks,

tlcmd

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Why do you think you need a "cleaner" application?  What problem are you trying to solve?  Who has convinced you your computer's gotten "dirty"?

 

My advice:  Learn how to delete the old files from your TEMP area, monitor what's set up to start and run via Task Manager or Autoruns from time to time, and never run a "cleaner" application.  ESPECIALLY NEVER RUN A REGISTRY CLEANER.  It's simply not needed.

 

They cause FAR more problems than they solve.  People may chime in and say "CCleaner is not like the others", and to that I'll respond in advance:  A glass hammer is not like the others either.  It doesn't mean you need one.

 

You don't know me from Adam, but I have run Windows systems since there have been WIndows systems, and I only ever install them once.  Let's see, I installed XP x64 in 2005 and ran that very same install until 2006 when I put in Vista x64, then installed Win 7 x64 in 2009, and now I'm on Windows 8.1 which went in last fall and is running as or more smoothly than the day it went in.  I don't even reinstall Windows when I get a new system.  For all the new workstations I've gotten I just restored a System Image backup from the old one and kept on working.  I've been a software engineer for 4 decades.

 

-Noel

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Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your advice. I am rapidly moving away from Windows to Linux, but my wife has a laptop with 8.1 and a desktop with 7. I've read and heard so much about CCleaner that before I screwed something up, I wanted to be certain that I needed to install it to those computers.

Thanks for the advice.

tlcmd

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...  Is CCleaner safe to run on Windows 7 & 8,1? ...

 

Can't tell about The Tiles Wonder but I've been using CCleaner for years on XP & Se7en, and it works like a charm for housekeeping. In 'Options' => 'Include' you can specify a list of folders that will be purged of crap whenever you run CCleaner, which is useful in spades. Also I routinely run its registry cleaning with all options ticked, and never have had a problem.

 

Ccleaner is always one of the first things I install on every system. Just my 2c.

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I also have been using CCleaner for years with no problems.  I know many people have said that registry cleaning and/or defragging has no proven benefit, and I have no proof that it helps either, but I feel better doing it and it has never adversely effected me.  You notice that even among the folks above that have said to not do registry cleaning or defragging, that none of them have said that CCleaner's file cleaning have caused problems.  NoelC has said that it's better to "do it yourself", and that is true from that standpoint that you should always know exactly what your apps are doing, but for the "lazy" among us, once you have set it up and confirmed which folders are being cleaned CCleaner is a quick thing you can use to automatically keep things tidy.

 

Note: see also http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171875-long-term-system-stability/?p=1078900, and elsewhere in that thread, for arguments for and against cleaning the registry.

 

Cheers and Regards

Edited by bphlpt
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There is actually a (wrong :ph34r:) assumption in the very beginning of this thread. :w00t:

 

And what is saddening :( is that it is the SAME assumption that has been forced down our throats by the good MS guys, that a single Operating System can be a one size fits all and all it's user should or must conform to a given behavioural model. 

 

 

NoelC's reported experience is the experience of a particularly knowledgeable software engineer using his computer on the workplace to do professionally whatever professional software engineers are supposed to do.

 

Another user, let's say a kid, with no actual (yet) understanding of the OS, downloading and running (even only to briefly test them) a zillion programs, among which many "rogue" ones, any number of *ahem* diversely obtained and authenticated pieces of software, navigating 2/3 to 4/5 of the Internet, playing every conceivable (and also unconceivable) online or offline game, may have some different experience both on the stability of the OS and on the utility of "registry cleaning" tools.

 

Personally, being (unfortunately) a grown up kid and not (cannot say if unfortunately ;)) a software engineer, I find that going midway, i.e. using (say) Regseeker and manually reviewing it's output before applying changes/deleting registry keys is a suitable approach.

 

jaclaz

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In a similar manner, as to CCleaner's file cleaning mode, it has an optional "Analyze" function so that you can see where the files will be deleted from before you commit to the changes.

 

Cheers and Regards

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CCL gives a report of all registry issues it finds before taking any action:

 

1UbSr.png

 

We can then review and untick at will before fixing.

 

 

Another of the many useful things that little mighty CCL can do is browser database compacting:

 

CCleanerCompactDB01.png

Edited by TELVM
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CCleaner is just fine. I add the UserID\TEMP folders to be emptied and never use the RegistryCleaner part without -first- knowing -exactly- what I'm removing (af anything). I haven't used the "regseeker" jaclaz mentioned but it's -probably- just fine to use (he's -usually- right :w00t: ) to determine -if- an entry should be "cleaned". I also don't delete LOG files and -only- clear "old prefetch" entries (they may get rebuilt anyway). Other than that, agreed that -do not- use random RegCleaners (many will screw you up). Also be aware that CCLeaner allows to back up the entries anyway (safety net). I can's say about Win8, however. :unsure:

 

HTH

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  • 11 months later...

Things I find especially useful about CCleaner, which I began using back when it was still called Crap Cleaner.

Browser database compaction.

Browser cache cleaning - because when something crashes a browser its own cache empty function often fails to delete everything (I'm looking at *you*, IE).

Removing entries in Programs and Features to clean up after programs with nonexistent or badly done/broken uninstall. It does a better job at that than Microsoft's cleanup tool.

Removing orphan registry data left behind by 99.9% of all software when uninstalled - thanks to Microsoft failing for decades to have Windows rigidly enforce a proper garbage collection policy.

Completely emptying Temp folders, same thing there, when Windows or a program crashes and leavse junk in a temp folder, it will usually get left there because the program or Windows has lost track of it.

 

Other than the browser database compaction, everything CCleaner does can be done using Regedit and Explorer, but it will take you many hours and you have to know what to look for and how/where to find it. For programs I want to remove but the author(s) failed to include a working uninstall, I can simply delete the files and folders then have CCleaner find all Registry data connected to those now missing files and folders and remove them.

 

I've NEVER had CCleaner cause any damage to Windows. I like to keep it clean and tidy and using as little storage and RAM as possible - that goes back to the first hard drive I owned. It was a massive (physically) full height 5.25" Tandon with a stepper motor actuated head. Capacity was five megabytes. Not gig, meg. There was a 10 meg version of the drive that had four platters instead of the two in the 5 meg, but I didn't have that kind of $$$$. I installed DOS and all the software I had at the time - which filled up half of the drive. Now I routinely work with single document files that wouldn't fit on that hard drive. :) Is this progress or data bloat?

 

Programmers ought to have to learn the basics on hardware with very limited storage and memory so they'll get the concept ingrained that to produce the best performance they should eliminate all unnecessary code and data. Then when they get to work with systems that have gigabytes of RAM, terabytes of storage and gigahertz of speed, they'll know how to get amazing performance instead of dumping a load of crap onto it just because there's "so much" space and speed that "it really doesn't matter". When you've used computers that specified 100 nanosecond DRAM but had so much slack in RAM timing they could take advantage of 80 nanosecond DRAM - and the hardware was slow enough you could easily see the speed difference (especially during POST memory check, tick - tick - tick VS tickticktick) - that's when you come to appreciate the difference very well crafted software makes.

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