mr don

CCleaner has an exact location for the areas it cleans. This is not possible for registry cleaning. Therefore, "Auto-clean" for the registry WILL result in critical parts of windows being deleted & cause problems. Registry cleaning is only to be used when the user can verify each string they remove to ensure CCleaner didn't snag the wrong items for removal...

Amen! Thanks for noticing that! I use Firefox 3.6.8 as well. I will have to test to see what happens. If this doesn't remove it, it definitely does need fixing. P.S. I am not sure if they fixed this one yet, but they used to have a problem with Internet Explorer wherein CCleaner would clean everything, but going back under history/search history in IE would pull up all the links (oops!) that you had been surfing! After you ran the internal Internet Explorer cleaner the first time, the IE7 or IE8 would then be cleaned by CCleaner properly! Great find! They snuck that one in there & I did not notice!

Correct! But somehow, I have never seen BHO or Tasks that are dangerous to remove? So I do not see the problem here!

Lately, I have noticed and alarming trend... Using the tasks folder to launch "startup" items... I was checking some Google Earth, Google Chrome, etc & noted that they had set themselves to update using the tasks folder instead of normal startup. This is getting ridiculous! There are at least 2 startup items that need to be addressed. BHO & Tasks folder. Both are getting regular hammering & abuse lately by newer applications seeking to "bypass" applications like CCleaner that enable a user to quickly disable an application from launching on startup. Please, save us all! Is there any way to add the other 2 startup items under startup? Under the startup button, you can have BHO section, Startup, Tasks Folder. Those are all 3 locations that items startup from. Lately, more & more applications are starting to abuse these locations to permanently set themselves to "update", run processes, hide from normal users! Please save us from this onslaught! BHO are all stored under 1 registry key I believe, so that should be a very simple matter to add, while tasks folder is always only in 1 folder as well on computers. Does anyone else think it is a good idea to add the ability to disable the other 2 startup locations? I am beginning to feel so incomplete lately, trying to disable programs only to find out they do not have themselves in the normal startup locations, but hide in BHO or Tasks folder? Here is a link that shows just how frustrated some users are getting at the new Google Updater "tasks" on startup! http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/earth/thread?tid=37ad9d03e5643889&hl=en I believe you can see what I mean if you read the first couple paragraphs. While I can & do know how to stop it, I pity the millions who do NOT know BHO + Tasks folder are 2 additional folders where items can load on startup! I sure hope this gets included into CCleaner, because more & more programs are added daily that are starting to try to "sneak into" the system by using these old & oft forgotten ways of loading! Please, help us before I tear my hair out, lol! Thanks!

How do you know whether the prompts are stored in the registry? Did you know? Windows will alert you to whether or not you are using an antivirus, firewall is off, etc. But if you use something like Win Rar SFX maker, you can also get it to do a silent import of the reg keys to silence or turn off those prompts without windows alerting you? Not sure if this also works in 7, but if it is possible, expect writers to first disable the "ok" button via registry script, or even do an auto-it script capable of clicking "OK" before you even see the window!

Yes, this would be cumbersome. Firefox in it's default location is easy enough to detect trash to remove. Firefox in an external drive, multiple external drives, tons of folders, zip files, portable configs, older versions, newer versions... The amount of checks they would have to have for checking for each version of FF that is wildly different, in addition to having to check every drive... I would think it is close to impossible. Don't write it off yet, or give up hope... Maybe I missed something?

I will remember that. I learn tricks as I go along from others like you. Thanks!

There are other people having problems with SP3 as well... Check out http://www.reviewsaurus.com/tips-tricks/windows-xp-sp3-service-pack-3-install-problems/ I am not recommending that you downgrade to SP2 to see if you fare better, but if you do make any serious changes, be sure you always back up your entire system before proceeding so that you have a way to recover in the event of a disaster.

Well, I mean, basically, yes! CCleaner is my fav cleaning tool. If they had it for Ubuntu, it would rooooooock!

Although I like Nirsoft tools, Batch Icon Extractor is much simpler to use & the icons it generates look much better than the IconsExtract by Nirsoft & also beats many of the other icon programs. I tried a lot of icon programs & suffered either from jagged edges, 256 color icons (as opposed to true color), etc., & Batch Icon Extractor seems to beat them all on the quality of the icons so far... It is free as well. http://www.rw-designer.com/batch-icon-extractor post edited by moderator to save space

If you have problems decrypting with UK Lightning's decrypter on newer movies you own, DVD Fab free works great for decrypting them. Then, you can shrink n burn with DVD Shrink. Seems that Nero 6 series works good with Shrink, but I do not know if 7, 8, or 9 do in the shrink "back up with Nero" option. There is a cheat you can do with shrink if you have a movie that is on 2 disks, & that is to create a back up of side A in a folder named PA & side B in a folder named B. Normally, you cannot load 2 movies into shrink, because the GUI will not allow it. If I recall correctly, after using the GUI to load the 1st half, you can drag n drop the 2cd half onto it & shrink em both to fit. I forget if this was under the main movie section, or whole disk, but I do recall that it did work. Additionally, you can run multiple passes on a movie to shrink it if needed, but this degrades quality severely.

I get lost sometimes in helping people. I think everyone gets sidetracked from time to time though. I will post a few good programs here that I like. - Locate32 is a free & fast file search utility that can locate thousands of files in an instant & has find as you type. At least, the beta does. I believe the other one may, not sure! It also features a unique find file containing text which can be very useful if you need to know what is in a certain file... XP Search is one weakness, & is verrrrry slow compared to this utility. If you have 500,000 or 1,000,000 files in various folders, XP will literally crawl for 15 min or more to find a file while Locate 32 is fast. Vista & 7 have gotten much faster in their searches, but they make it harder to find their search options such as searching an external or flash drive. In addition, Vista & 7 throw up results at times that may not be what you want, or show limited results, while Locate32 shows everything (even hidden files). - IMGburn is a great free CD/DVD image creator/recorder - InfraRecorder is a good free CD/DVD burner - BartDart context menu is a good program to check right click context menus for invalid entries - Pete Romaines Attribute Changer is a good free tool that can change properties of files/folders when windows can't - Unlocker by Cedrick Collomb is a good free tool to unlock files so you can move/delete files that are locked - ExtractNow is a good free multi archive unpacker that is fast & easy to use. It does away with probs you may encounter using Winrar or Winzip to extract tons of Zip/7Zip/ISO/Rar & tons of other types because it gives each file its own folder so none of them ever get overwritten There are a lot more, but I am sleepy right now. Maybe I will add to the list later.

I will list ways to speed things up, but be sure to always have a good & complete OS backup before proceeding on any suggestions anyone makes here. This will eliminate problems should things go wrong. - It is known that both XP & 7 are faster than Vista. This is 1 way to be faster. - Turn off visual effects in Vista, particularly Aero Peek. - If you have bloatware like Norton/McAffee, uninstall their whole suite & replace it with something like AVG free. - Use Nirsoft Startup Run to detect startup + BHO objects. Disable all you know are safe to & can do without. - CClean the drive. - Turn off System Restore to clear all those gigs of data, then re-enable it & create a new one for emergency. - Uninstall all internet service offers, trialware office progs, games etc, & replace it with better ones like Open Office freeware. - Be sure your system is free of malware, as this can greatly slow a system. - Defraggler your system fully. - If you haven't checked your drive, a 7,200 RPM drive is cheap & 2x faster read/write/load than 5,400 RPM. There are also 10,000 & 15,000 RPM drives & SSD solid state drives. Bigger cache sizes are better, IE, 2 mb cache, 4, 8, 16, 32 because they can hold more pre-processed data. - If you haven't got one, a good 2d/3d video card can speed things up. ATI is probably the best in compatibility/appearance/speed balance although some prefer NVidia. - Be sure your system is clean of dust & adequately cooled. Check that the fans on the processor/video card/PSU work like they should. Dust traps heat. - If you don't use this feature, turn off the check for networked folders/printers on startup. - Turning off check for differential file compression on networks can speed up things. - Get to know your non MS services & disable ones you do not need. Be sure you read up on each one online first & know what they do. - Turning color depth down to 16 bit instead of 32 can speed things up as well as using a blank backgroud instead of a pic. JPG files are usually much smaller than BMP & much faster to display if you have to use one. - If you have lots of files, partition the drive into 2 drives so that you have 1 drive to put all your Drivers, Audio, Docs, Games, Pics, Videos, Apps onto. This speeds up defragging/virus & malware scans/file search utilities & saves wear on your drive to boot! I am very sleepy now. Maybe I will think of more later on. Be sure to google anything you do not know, or ask people you trust on here before proceeding with anything. I am sure they will be glad to help if you have any questions. P.S. Have you tried Miranda IM?

Ubuntu is easy. Do a complete PC backup & check that your PC is set to load from CD/DVD 1st. Then: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ - Download Ubuntu iso & burn to CD with imgburn - Insert Ubuntu disk in CD tray & reboot - PC will auto-detect Ubuntu & give you option to erase the old OS before installing Ubuntu, or dualboot. - I chose dualboot & Ubuntu automatically presented me with a suggested partition resize. - I accepted & a few screens later I was almost done. Ubuntu offered checkboxes to import XP's wallpaper, firefox settings, My Docs, My pics, etc. before entering Ubuntu ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Seemed pretty easy to me, & was done in less than 2 hr including download ISO, burn it, setup, etc...

What other distros do you like/use? Linux Mint? Puppy Linux? React OS? Other?

Cool, but do we really need ANOTHER version of Windows? I am still getting used to 7!

Spoofed? Is it also "spoofed" news that we provided the $$$ for the $700 billion dollar bailout for the rich people?

I know why. Because you are so used to the Windows way, you essentially wish for a "Windows" Ubuntu. Ubuntu is not perfect, but it is improving by leaps & bounds. The GUI is getting better, driver support, icons, simplicity of setup/use... Eventually it will be competition to Windows at this rate. May not run certain Win apps yet, but eventually... it will become good enough I believe.

Yes, they should have. If car makers were treated the same way Microsoft was, Toyota would be let off the hook for problems like stuck gas pedals on all cars over 2, or perhaps 4, 5, whatever years old. It is time big conglomerate corps like MS learn to take the humble walk. They produce faulty product, they fix fault product. Else, let Toyota & other companies off the hook as well.

You must have high speed internet. I do as well. But download managers can save someone's hide on dialup. I still remember the days of 5kbs download speed, & a 98% done file that took all night, when someone would call & it would lose the whole file. Using a download manager would ensure the file was resumed where it left off so I would not lose all that hard work. If you are on dialup, do not under-estimate the need for it!

Try using wordpad instead of notepad as it may be able to open files that notepad is not. Notepad, however, is faster. Additionally, you may try Abiword, which is a free text editing program that was successful in opening w98 word files that WXP would not, simply because of using a different method of creating/opening texts. Abiword can open files sometimes that win word has problems opening. Try it & post your results here. Thanks!

Can you clean in Safe Mode? See if it works in Safe Mode if you can, then post the results here. Also, what OS did you put back on the computer & what SP does it have? Did you re-install to a C: drive, or D:, E:, etc? When you re-installed, was it a clean install, upgrade install, dual boot? When you deleted reg entries, did you check if you can fix it by a Sys Restore to a date prior to that? Thanks!

Run CCleaner, then try this: - Sometimes restore points can cause problems, so disable restore points on your system to purge old entries. - Re-enable System Restore & create a new system restore point so that if things go wrong, you have something to restore back to. - Try Defraggler again If Defraggler still fails: - Try opening Defraggler, then go to the file list tab. Select all files & see if it will defrag. - If this fails, try Quick Defrag & see if that works. - If that works, try to do the full drive defrag. Let me know if you still have problems.

What OS are you running? Also, have you altered defraggler settings to move large files to the end of the disk, or altered its default settings? Do you have programs that backup/run background jobs WHILE defraggler is running? Thanks!

CCleaner has 2 settings that may affect this. Start Menu cleaner attempts to remove invalid start menu items. User Assist history clears the list of recently run apps from the start menu. I am assuming that you meant it wiped your recent history list out, & if this is the case, simply uncheck it in CCleaner.