Andavari

Installing Windows was never difficult. Now comes the absolute chore of reinstalling all of your user software and configuring the system the way you like it. That takes significantly longer than installing Windows.

You state you uninstalled, and reinstalled CCleaner. However did you reboot after uninstalling? Sometimes that can heal an issue. As for it being a bug in CCleaner I don't know, it could be something to do with your system. I personally haven't had that issue in Win10.

It was mentioned on here awhile back in a topic, where he stated to just use Windows Defender ("Security Essentials"). Personally if Security Essentials was still made for XP and if it had optimized scanning which it doesn't even seem to have in Win10 I'd use it over Panda Free Antivirus.

1. Uninstall software with an uninstaller such as Revo Uninstaller Free 2. To accomplish your search you can use NirSoft RegScanner (some antivirus' may falsely flag it).

If you're very annoyed by Gravatar (a privacy concern) as I am constantly loading on forums and websites you visit all over the web causing them to load very slow here's how to completely block it. Mozilla Firefox: Since Firefox doesn't fully honor the blocking in ad blocking extensions or the Windows HOSTS file (how I don't know) you'll have to enable this in Firefox to make it block Gravatar: Go into: Tools > Options > Privacy > Change Block List > and select: Disconnect.me strict protection Chrome/Chromium Browsers: As long as you use an ad blocker from what I've seen it will honor what you wish to block, unlike Firefox. Regardless of whatever web browser you use or adblocking extension input the following websites to block: en.gravatar.com gravatar.com secure.gravatar.com www.gravatar.com In the Windows HOSTS file block the same sites: en.gravatar.com gravatar.com secure.gravatar.com www.gravatar.com It might look like this in your HOSTS file, depending upon your configuration: 127.0.0.1 en.gravatar.com 127.0.0.1 gravatar.com 127.0.0.1 secure.gravatar.com 127.0.0.1 www.gravatar.com Or it might look like this in your HOSTS file, depending upon your configuration: 0.0.0.0 en.gravatar.com 0.0.0.0 gravatar.com 0.0.0.0 secure.gravatar.com 0.0.0.0 www.gravatar.com To edit the HOSTS file on a system where editing is blocked by Windows (probably anything newer than Windows XP) right click a Notepad shortcut and: Run as administrator, then you should be able to edit the HOSTS file without Windows restricting it. Or use a freeware tool like HostsXpert (which will have a UAC prompt) to edit it.

Saw a YouTube video on this last week, and the guy said they could allow updates if they wanted too but won't in order to force people onto Win10. And once on Win10 they will spy on them and harvest their info.

Perhaps the disk(s) need error scanned with ChkDsk, and then defragmented. And virus scanned! Since it was probably in-use constantly at an university system maintenance might not have been regularly performed on it.

I agree to do the reinstall this time, next time you need to have your disk imaging in proper order to save your time. While a fresh start with Windows will undoubtedly fix all issues that still doesn't make it not suck.

One way to figure out if it's only your user profile is to follow what mta wrote above. I once had a corrupt user profile immediately after uninstalling some software which I suspect was probably the user's registry NTUSER.dat file many years before I ever got into disk imaging, and creating a new account and then copying+pasting over the files from the corrupt profile to the new one was easy (I literally copied everything from the corrupt profile to the new one - minus the user's registry NTUSER.dat). Although it's always a pain to reconfigure stuff exactly how you have Windows Explorer configured, etc., the looks and how the layout was configured is difficult to remember, which is why taking some screenshots of how you have stuff is very time-saving and screenshots are also time-saving if you decide to format or restore the system.

Usually what I recommend is to: 1. Backup your Firefox Profile, just in case you change your mind and wish to use it again you don't have to start over from scratch. 2. Uninstall Firefox with an uninstaller such as Revo Uninstaller Free, it will find much more than just running the standard uninstallers included with programs.

On my XP system the Compact Databases works with no issues, it did in CC 5.27 and now CC 5.28, other's aren't so lucky.

I know from looking at an Aomei Backuuper review that it can restore from within Windows, the problem is if the backup image is stored on the operating system drive C:, that's a disaster. After you get your system up and running with your preferences when you make a disk image backup do not store it on drive C:\, and also if you have a CD drive make the bootable CD or a bootable USB Thumb Drive by downloading the .ISO file that Aomei has on their website that way you can fully restore outside of the Windows environment and be up and running in minutes like nothing ever happened.

Perhaps it is the antivirus software causing the excessive slow speed. Some antivirus scanners will scan every file moved during a defrag therefore temporarily disabling the antivirus real-time protection may allow it to defrag faster. Then again allot of modern antivirus scanners know to calm down when a defrag is taking place at least they do with the built in Windows defrag.

Something else to add for security is Avira Browser Safety which works with WinXP up to Win10: * It's available here for Firefox on Avira's website, it's not available on the Firefox add-ons website however. * It's available here for Chrome & Chromium in Google's Chrome Webstore. The reason I added it into Firefox Portable and SRWare Iron Portable is from the various YouTube videos I've seen of it blocking all sorts of malicious and phishing sites. If you don't visit any bad sites it will however not bother you one bit.

If you created the boot CD or bootable USB stick with AOMEI Backuuper that's what I'd suggest using to fully restore your system since you are after all comfortable with that program. Basically restore from the bootable medium that way your outside of Windows and aren't being locked out. Caveat: If you didn't have either disk imaging program backup all partitions when you imaged your system and you restore it can wreak havoc on your system.

From my understanding on a traditional mechanical hard disk with moving parts the access speed and write speed will be faster near the beginning of the disk. That's why defrag software tries to move programs and operating system files near the beginning of the disk so programs will load faster, and Windows will startup faster. The further down it gets into the defrag map the closer it gets to the slower areas of the hard disk.

It was at the bottom of my ccleaner.ini file using CCleaner Portable. Something new they added and not told us about, however it's not a reason for concern.

The closer you get towards the slower area of the disk the defrag process will slow down, and if there's allot of small files that will also cause a speed decrease. I personally pay no attention to Defraggler's remaining time because often on my system it grossly over estimates giving the illusion it will take say 45 minutes and instead it's done in 10 minutes. People have complained about it enough over the years I'm surprised they have just removed the remaining time, or turn it off by default and instead make it an option that has to be turned on.

The limit if there is one is undocumented. You could perhaps try to do it using the winapp2.ini file by making your own cleaning routine. And if that doesn't work you could make a batch file (.bat) script, that would certainly work.

At least they're finally disabling the ability for Adobe Flash. About the only thing I wish I could have from it on my old system is that new address field in RegEdit, but at least there's RegJump for that on old OSes.

How to avoid installation and restore your portable version: 1. Get 7-Zip (installs), or 7-Zip Portable (no install). 2. In 7-Zip or 7-Zip Portable right-click the installer and select "Open Inside", this opens the installer without running it. Screenshot (click for full sized image): 3. Then extract CCleaner.exe into your folder where the portable version is. If your XP system is 64-bit you'll need to extract both of the CCleaner .exe files.

HOSTS file is a file used system wide regardless of the software used on the system. It's why many antivirus and anti-malware software will see a modified HOSTS file as a security risk or infection. When using a HOSTS file you don't have to input sites to block into your web browsers you can use just that single HOSTS file to block the connection to sites you deem bad from loading in any web browsers, or to block software from phoning home, etc. SpywareBlaster has nothing to do with the HOSTS file at all, it doesn't write anything into the HOSTS file whatsoever - maybe they however should come to think of it. SpywareBlaster blocks bad websites in your web browser the exact same way you'd enter into say Internet Explorer, or Firefox (installed versions only) a site you wanted the browser to block (in some cases a site will only be partially blocked). The one extra thing SpywareBlaster does is set ActiveX killbits so some malicious installations won't work.

Interesting. I didn't know CCleaner would work without a proper Detect or DetectFile.

In the YouTube videos I've seen showing snippets of Zelda it looks ok, but at the same time it also looks a bit different or off, or should I say weird stylistically. I personally won't buy a Switch because Nintendo is too big on selling extra hardware like different controllers for a particular game or whatever and I'm not interested in that kind of an investment, also the games seem more geared towards kids or young people. The portability of it really wouldn't interest me either, and that portability has been causing scratches on some of the units when placing them into the docking station for playback on a TV.

Windows Event Viewer is the first place I look if a program is misbehaving, and like you Hazelnut I'm periodically going through the logs.