PierreS

I'll just repeat, if it were that easy, it would have been used already by malware writers, wouldn't it? After all, they may be malevolent idiots, but they're not stupid?

Well, AFAIK you can't disable UAC without getting an UAC prompt, at least under Win7. Otherwise this would have been used already by malware writers, wouldn't it? After all, they may be malevolent idiots, but they're not stupid? By the same token, you can't create a scheduled task with maximum privileges without getting an UAC prompt, unless UAC is already disabled ? and such a task must be provided with an admin login's ID and password to run properly, as it will not run if the admin doesn't have a password.

@Alan_b: Ok, so your personal history is one of extreme caution and utmost technical accomplishment ? or the other way around . You're not the average user, point well taken. Given that, I wonder why you use any software not written by yourself to do sometyhing so risky as removing trash? For the rest of us, however, CCleaner is quite useful and, used with ordinary caution, could be made to remove the temp files and MRU entries from all existing profiles on the local computer without bringing down the wrath of the Gods upon the local administrator, and that, as I recall it, was the suggestion of the OP?

In my experience, moving a file to the bin is exactly equivalent to deleting it, as far as the consequences to older entries go. At least, that's how the bin works on the NT platform. Possibly Win9x/ME was less consistent, I never experimented that?

No I haven't. As a matter of fact, one of my first actions on a new system is to bring the bin's size down, not up

If you have UAC enabled, any program that needs admin privilege will ask for it and abide by your choice. If UAC is disabled, the program will simply run as a standard user and, either fail to install, or get installed in the current user's virtual store folder, where it's effectively sandboxed.

I agree. Furthermore, the recycle bin is allotted a given percentage of the drive's space. Whenever you "delete" something and it pushes the bin's contents over that limit, the system will effectively remove enough of the older contents to make room for the new. Anything "stored" in the bin can thus disappear without warning.

/me thinks Alan_B is training to be a lawyer (or maybe he's one already? ): he's straining at gnats (the next exercise is swallowing camels ) The proposed function that would let CCleaner remove the trash from all accounts in one fell swoop, like all other options in CCleaner, doesn't have to be activated, this is left to the computer owner's – or administrator's – choice. If we allowed every possible risk, however remote, to stop us from going forward, we'd never get anything done. Just remember this: by today's standards, we wouldn't have Aspirin.

@Alan_B: Removing temp files is 100% safe as long as you do it upon login, not at shutdown time the way you have set it up. When I shut down my computer, I also use a desktop (actually, taskbar) icon I've set up and which runs the command "shutdown -s -t 0". Yes, it does take a few extra seconds, but it also takes care of flushing the disk write-behind cache the way it's designed to be.

@Alan_B: I have no idea how CCleaner identifies the various drives/partitions in order to clean the recycle bins. That's a question for its developer(s). If I had written it (assuming I were able to), I'd use the registry as the easiest available information repository.

That's just a cop-out reason. A built-in updater could "remember" the build currently installed and update it accordingly ? supposing even that the "extra" components (browser toolbar and home page) have been updated too.

@Alan-B Alan, I can understand your concern over loss of control, of your own machine, but you have to remember that the OP only wants the ability to remove temp files (as pointed out by Mr Don). Furthermore, I fail to see the relation between your – admittedly – gruesome experience with .Net and CCleaner's cleanup of unnecessary temp files and MRU registry entries. Just put yourself in the position of a computer-savvy father (or mother) of 3 children, with one standard user profile for each child and one for his wife (or her husband), who doesn't wish to waste 5 minutes logging on to each profile (supposing the children haven't changed their passwords) and running CCleaner for it, but still wishes to prune temp files before running the weekly anti-malware scan (what's the point in wasting time scanning expendable harmless temp files?)

@Alan_B Ok, you made your point. For the record, ever since I eschewed Win9x/ME (I switched to NT, then Win2k, as soon as I could), I've never had a missing executable at startup or missing DLL event after uninstalling software (and I do install/uninstall a lot). Yet I may have used a registry cleaner maybe 3 or 4 times in the last 14 years – and none since I moved to Vista, then Win7. Disk space is cheap these days. Salvaging a couple of sectors isn't worth the effort and risk, IMO. Defragmenting the disk regularly is a better way to keep the system shipshape. But, whatever rocks your boat (and no, I never was a sailor )

@Alan_B: For one thing, using the registry cleaning function of CCleaner isn't something I'd do. Not that I don't trust CCleaner, but cleaning the registry is something that'll gain you a few hundred bytes at most, and this is not Win9x/ME anymore If you want to optimize your registry, use NTREGOPT instead. For another, corporate policies are there for a purpose. If you feel you have a good reason they shouldn't apply to you, you need to explain your needs to the I.T. dept., not bypass their safeguards. Did I mention I used to be I.T. manager for the French subsidiary of a big software company (not Microsoft)?

+1

It does. I've relocated my user data files (Documents, Downloads, etc?) to a physically different drive that's on a removable tray and can be put under lock and key. All that's required is that you take care to have the drive inserted before power-up.

You can use the "custom folders" option. As for temp files and other system-managed folders, it's been my experience that CCleaner uses the registry to locate them, so even if you relocated them (which I do) they'll be cleaned. One prime example is the recycle bin: there is one physically on each drive/partition, and they're all emptied as a matter of course.

Running as a service, CCleaner would have the ability to read ? and respect ? each individual user's CCleaner settings from the registry or .INI file. Thus it wouldn't remove anything from any profile that the corresponding user wouldn't delete by using CCleaner in interactive mode. And if a particular profile had never previously used CCleaner, then the default settings could be used instead of the aministrator profile's. Also, you appear to assume that multiple-profile computers are used in a professional environment. In my long (40+ years) experience, professional computers have at most only two local profiles defined: one local administrator and one "work" user (which may or may not belong to a domain). Any multiple-profile professional computers would use roaming profiles. The only computers I've seen with multiple local profiles are family computers.

Glad to help

You make my point When you create a scheduled task, don't use the "Create basic task" dialog. Use the "Create task" one. On the first screen of the dialog you will find the "execute with maximum privileges" checkbox. The rest should be quite straightforward, only more detailed than the "basic" dialog. If the task has already been created, you can edit its properties, it will use the same detailed dialog. Caveat: this is only valid for admin users. For a standard user, CCleaner doesn't trigger an UAC prompt, so the scheduled task rigamarole isn't required.

But not everyone is conversant with the Vista or W7 task scheduler, for one thing, and it requires creating one task per admin user profile, for another. Having CCleaner take care of the nitty-gritty details would be a big help for a lot of people.

I know that. But the autorun option could generate a scheduled task with "maximum privileges" when created for admin users. Such tasks don't cause an UAC prompt. There would only be an UAC prompt when validating the option, which is OK because you're in the middle of an interaction anyway. Barring that, how about an option to run CCleaner without needing nor requesting admin privileges when run automatically, the way it runs under a "standard" user ID? Some system areas wouldn't be cleaned at login time, but the bulk of temporary data (TIF, Temp, history, cookies…) still would be.

Currently, when CCleaner is launched under a login with admin privilege under Vista or Win7, it causes an UAC prompt. Because of this, it's very uncomfortable to launch it for an automatic cleanup at login time (the "Run CCleaner when computer starts" option), simply because you have to be on hand to reply to the prompt instead of being able to do something else while the system initializes. It would be a good idea to have an option bypass this prompt when CCleaner is launched automatically. Thank you