Augeas

I think I understand what Anku means, all the apparently excessive 'Are you sure?' messages when deleting a registry entry. I get this behaviour with CC, and I don't mind it at all. It's fairly unusual for a suggestion to get a response from the delelopers unless it's a really spiffing idea (although I'm sure they are all read).

Oh dear.... you were going so well and then you split an infinitive right at the end. By the way, oh brave soul, what does Recuva say after you have wiped free space with CCleaner?

Yes, yes, but Does it overwrite the deleted files you have, or.. does it overwrite the entire unused/available space on the disk? Does it leave deleted filenames the same, rename them to ZZZ's, or miraculously make them vanish? How do you spell miraculously? As you can see I am too chicken to try it myself, and too lazy to read the help section or get out the dictionary.

You can get rid of all your thumbs.db files without noticing the slightest effect. I have 'Do not cache thumbnails' ticked in my folder view options, so they ate never created in the first place. I think they are just annoying, the amount of space they take up is negligible.

1) Your pc no longer boots up 2) Your pc is on fire 3) Your pc has melted 4) Oh, I dunno, one or more of the countless idiosyncrasies or foibles of your pc no longer acts as it did before. There's no way you can restore your pc settings after using CC, except for the registry clean. Assuming you ran a backup when prompted, then right click on the saved .reg file and select merge.

You think that four clicks to clean your registry is onerous? You've probably used up five years worth of registry cleaning clicks typing your post. Use one of Homer's nodding birds (I'll get told off for awarding you the Helper Monkey prize).

As far as I know there is a one to one correspondence between live files and entries in the MFT. The MFT entry holds the filename and other file info, size, location, dates etc. When a live file is deleted by CC using secure deletion the filename in the MFT is overwritten by ZZZ's. I have not known CC to leave any unaltered filenames in the MFT when secure deletion is used. It might be possible, I dunno. Of course there are many deleted file entries in the MFT that were not deleted using CC's secure deletion, so these file names can be seen. CC only renames file that it is specifically deleting.

It's always difficult to comprehend an application that runs with no problems for many people (incl me) and then suddenly screws some pc up. I think it's reasonable to say that CC, whatever version, does not commonly or routinely screw anything up. I would guess that there's one particular thing or combination of things being shafted that's causing the problem: 'Internet Explorer and...a blank page. Firefox worked but Internet Explorer 7 and Microsoft Updates would not' is not a catastrophic failure, but identifying and fixing it is. Alright, what O/S, etc. Did you run CC Cleaner or Registry clean, or both? What does IE would not work mean?

As I understand, mainly from wasting time on Google (as anyone can do): When a slot in the MFT is allocated for a file the slot remains in the MFT forever The MFT never reduces in size Defrags will not overwrite filenames in empty MFT slots, or move anything into them New file allocations will attempt to use existing 'deleted' slots in the MFT What Ron said Nothing is ever deleted from a disk, just overwritten Diskwashers work by filling the disk with data and the MFT with dummy file names, then deleting all they've created Piriform developers know more than I do

Louis, you could always try it, as we have done. And as you have already quoted this "Note: When CCleaner securely deletes files, it renames them with all Zs in the file name (for example, ZZZZZZZZ.ZZZ) for increased security." why do you doubt that CC will perform as intended? In my experience CC, when set to secure deletion, will overwrite filenames in the MFT to some variant of ZZZZ.ZZ. It doesn't delete them.

Maybe, but it made my head hurt and I'm none the wiser.

I would uninstall as best as you can, download CC again from one of the links on the Piriform page, and reinstall. If it still happens give a little info on O/S and what virus/spy/malware/etc stuff you have installed.

If you have Internet Explorer/Temporary Internet Files ticked in CC, secure delete set to one overwrite, and no delete options set in IE, then CC will delete all your temp int files securely. Why do you think that CC is not deleting these files?

Not with Recuva. Search the forum for this topic, which has been discussed many times.

I'm not quite sure what you want. Have you done a sys restore to the point before the files were created? As far as I know sys restore - in XP anyway - does not touch user data, but restores system files and registry keys only. Have you tried running a deep scan? This will list every cluster onthe drive that appears to contain file data. It will take a long time and produce a long list of files, but if it ain't here it ain't anywhere.

Yes, I have experienced this once, pc dies and temp internet files get deleted. You can either select and overwrite them using Recuva (which it appears you have done) or don't do any cleanups and wait until they are overwritten by new file allocations.

Why are you posting this again, Den? Were you not satisfied with the response to http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20346&hl= ?

You've asked this question several times before and it has been answered, such as here http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20138&hl=# and that thread refers to here http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20089&hl= Please read tyhe thread though and if you have any specific question post again.

If you use CC's registry clean then taking a backup is the default, as is putting the backup in My Documents. If you think that you took a backup then search your c drive for .reg files. If you find one then check the date and time, it'll be called something like cc_20090208_012801.reg.

Are you using exFat on your hard drives? I understand that M/S designed exF specifically for flash drives, and that Vista doesn't make installing exF an option. You can install Vista (and XP) with exF but I guess people who do this will be, shall we say, on the fringe. And yes, we need people who are willing to be on the fringe, but they'll probably live in an unsupported world. Of course if you're talking about defragging an exF flash drive, then search the forum to see why this is a waste of time.

I think that the best advice is not to worry about the registry too much. I only run a scan on mine at monthly intervals, if I remember, and then I hardly delete anything. It won't make much difference either to speed or space if you remove these entries, although I appreciate that CC will look much cleaner.

Reading your posted link seems to imply that the problem occurs when the listed items below have huge GB file sizes, and that it is fine both to see and remove these entries when they have relatively low amounts to remove, as they say you should be fine with only 5GB total. Now I am not going to tell you to run CC, and if I did you shouldn't just do as I say. The problem hasn't been reported by other Vista users, and I'm sure they would squeal if they had to reload the O/S. Perhaps the developers will be able to reassure you. There's a lot of posted stuff on this on Google, this http://forums.techarena.in/vista-help/1117136.htm being one of the first, with some good links. And this: I came across this paragraph from the MSDN documentation: Description for the Folder registry value: A specific folder or folders to search for items matching entries in the FileList value. You can specify wildcards using the ? or * characters. If the value is of type REG_SZ, multiple folder names are separated using the | character, without spaces on either side of it. If a CSIDL value is present, only one folder can be specified in this value. The location indicated by the CSIDL value is prepended to that folder path to compose a search path. For an example, see the CSIDL value description. If this value is absent, the root folder of the current volume is used. The DDEVCF_DOSUBDIRS flag is needed in that case to search the entire drive. Note the last line which states that the Disk Cleanup will recursively search the entire volume for the list of files mentioned in the FileList registry value (*.* wildcard used in this case) and include everything on the volume for deletion, if the DDEVCF_DOSUBDIRS flags is enabled (which is enabled by default).

It's a one way street, FAT32 to NTFS only. And of course it's partitions that are NTFS'd, not files (I'm nit-picking at the moment). Dunno about the install, don't you have to format the disk first with the big F command and then put the O/S on? It sounds as if you're reinstalling over the existing O/S. Someone who does this sort of thing every five minutes will be along in a mo. Yes, I wish there was a Just do as I Blooming Well Say button on PC's.

I have no knowledge of Windows 7 but I understand it is still in beta testing stage. I wouldn't be too surprised if any proprietary software had a few glitches running against an O/S that hasn't been officially released yet. Others have commented on Windows 7 and Piriform software, a search might help you.

There may be a number of reasons: this has been discussed several time before, a forum search will, or should, produce some helpful info.