Robbie

I find it irritating when my computer takes longer than a couple of minutes at the most to go from the Windows splash screen to the desktop being ready for use - I think it may actually load all it needs to load in about a minute and half but there's always some process or two that's still seemingly loading so I leave it for a half a minute more. If I install a program that slows down the boot time I tend to remove the program or at least see if it needs to run at startup.

I had exactly the same problem with the same registry entry. No amount of running the Registry cleaning part of CCleaner would remove this entry. I also couldn't manually delete it via the Registry either as I was getting a security warning. I then thought about what programs I had installed recently - the main one was Avira AntiVir Personal and specifically I had chosen an option (or at least I think I chose the option) under Configuration - (tick Expert Mode option) - General - Security to "Protect files and registry entries from manipulation". I unchecked that option and was then able to delete this registry entry and it has stayed deleted, even after I retick that security option. As the registry entry is no longer there (I did a search through the Registry after re-enabling that security option, saving the configuration and restarting the computer) I don't know if that security option is really enabled any more but it has at least sorted out the entry that CCleaner kept finding and then failing to delete.

slight correction here: it's about 15 to 20 mins per partition and as I have 3 partitions it's probably about 45 mins to 1 hour to do the entire hard drive.

If you've deleted your Firefox Internet History then it's gone for good and there's nothing you can do to get it back. All you can do is untick that option so it doesn't delete your history in the future.

it only takes about 20 minutes to run on my computer so I'd say it isn't running properly on yours... my computer is 80GB, 768MB RAM and the same 2.8Ghz CPU. I suggest you stop it running.

Can I just add, for anyone feeling a bit nervous about running CCleaner (or any other type of cleaner) for the first time and who is worried about what will happen to their files, folders, pictures, documents etc: If you have important documents on your computer BACK THEM UP! Not just because you are going to run a cleaning program for the first time but simply because it's an important part of computer maintenance. Without sounding all doom and gloom, what would you do if your hard drive failed? Or your computer wouldn't boot one day? Or a thousand other things that could befell the computer? I back up all my documents to DVD once a month and my most important ones to a small USB flash drive almost every day. Perhaps that may be considered overkill by some but I learned the hard way what happens if nothing is ever backed up - my hard drive failed a few years back and I lost everything, all my pictures, documents, music files... CCleaner is a good program to use as part of your computer maintenance regime but so is backing up on a regular basis any important files you have...

I'm currently testing AVG 8.5 after having just upgraded from 7.5. I'm not sure if I'll stick with it, it has slowed down my computer start-up time, doubling it - the Resident Shield is causing that particular problem and it's happening on both my XP PC and Vista Laptop. There are a few other issues I have with it, mainly it making my computer slower in responding and I have the scan option disabled so that isn't the issue. For example, it slows down the speed at which icons load and there seems to be an annoying lag of a second or two when I try to do something, like trying to open a program or a file. I tried Avast Home Free edition a few months ago when AVG 7.5 was originally going to be discontinued but preferred AVG 7.5 (the computer started quicker) so went back to that. I'm sticking with AVG 8.5 until I can say I've given it a decent chance but the way it causes the computer (both of them) to start slower and the way it seems to cause both PC and laptop to be sluggish isn't endearing me to it. To be honest I can see me changing my anti-virus program in the near future so I'm following this thread with interest for tips of what to use. The one thing I will say: why do program manufacturers sometimes "improve" a product by making it bloated and run slower? It happened with Zone Alarm in 2006 so I had to change my firewall and now it seems to have happened with AVG too - a lovely little, smooth running program has become anything but a lovely little, smooth running program...

On the Windows Advanced part of CCleaner, when the User Assist History is chosen a warning appears: WARNING about "User Assist History" This will clear the most used programs list on the XP start menu. This mention of XP appears where the OS is Vista. Perhaps the best thing to do is just to omit mention of XP?

I had this exact same problem when I burned some files to disk and discarded some of the files to the recycle bin then ran a secure delete on the recycle bin using Eraser. The original files in my music folder were destroyed and the files were 0kb in size. It appears to be a quirk of the Windows operating system. When files are sent to be copied to a disk and then are sent to the recycle bin the recycle bin contains a shortcut to the original location of the file and securely deleting the file deletes the original. Deleting the files using Recycle Bin's usual deletion method just deletes the shortcut and leaves the original files untouched. The only solution is to never run a secure delete on the Recycle Bin when you have files in there that have been sent to be burned to disk but which are then deleted to the Recycle Bin. See my posts at the Eraser forums about this very problem: http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=988 (my link in the post in the above no longer works and I can't find my original post anymore) http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1654

I hope this is of some help. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798 One of the errors covered in that Help and Support article is when the following error is reported: "When you try to install an update or to install a service pack, you may receive an error message that is similar to one of the following: (Name of Update Package) Setup could not verify the integrity of the file Update.inf. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer." Further down in the article are a series of possible solutions. Edit: Having read your post again, I just realised that the above error relates to the failure of the laptop to install Win XP SP3 which is likely to happen given the other errors that you have reported. Apologies for that since it doesn't address the main problems you outlined.

ah, but it's not always "free" in the sense that there's nothing there. If you delete a file via the recycle bin Windows doesn't actually delete the file but rather deletes reference to the file in the Master File Table and marks the space occupied by that file as free for use (ie the deleted file becomes part of free space)- eventually it may be written over by another file but then again it may not. In addition, some applications place files into free space as part of their normal operations, for example temporary files, backup files, etc that the program may create and then automatically delete. The result is a free space that actually contains files that can be recovered. So overwriting free space often means overwriting deleted files. In addition free space wipes work by writing temporary files to free space, to fill free space until there is none left and then securely overwriting these files to delete the temporary files. So the actual act of doing a free space wipe requires the ability to create and then securely delete temporary files.

the C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Cookies\index.dat file (path is for XP, may differ in Vista) is not deleted immediately after running CCleaner but rather is deleted after a reboot. Perhaps it is this file that SAS advises that a reboot is required to delete?

I have noticed one bizarre bug which occurs after running the free space wipe with CCleaner - it caused some sort of strange behaviour if used alongside the free space wipe in Eraser and then the Deep Scan in Recuva is run. Simply Eraser works by creating a number of largish temporary files which fills free space and then at the end of the process the temporary files are overwritten and deleted. The result is a large number of 0kb files that can be seen by running Recuva. Now, if the free space wipe is run with CCleaner and then at some point this Eraser free space wipe is run then on an initial run of Recuva (with the Deep Scan option NOT checked) the run will reveal that there are X amount of zero byte size files (as should be expected - this is normal behaviour of how Eraser works). Now run a scan with Deep Scan checked and the scan will reveal those same files PLUS the same files also showing as temp files (ie from a different directory) which doubles the amount of 0kb files found AND a number of Eraser files with a 42MB size are also found - these show as being in the same directory as those additional 0kb temp files and all contain data from what I can see, presumably the data that Eraser writes to each file as the program works its way through the free space. The files are all shown as being "excellent" for recovery with the green symbol showing. To compound the mystery of this, if I then run chkdsk on the volume with the /f parameter then all those additional files disappear if I run Recuva again - the only files then showing are the ones that would have shown had I never run the free space wipe with CCleaner. The problem then returns the next time I run a free space wipe with Eraser. I tried this on all volumes on my XP computer and this strange behaviour happened each and every time. On my Vista laptop the amount of 0kb files doubled but the 42MB Eraser files never appeared. Again running chkdsk (volume) /f cleared the problem. The MFT also seemed quite large after running the free space wipe with CCleaner on each and every volume on both XP and Vista, much bigger than it had been before on a couple of volumes. Quite what this behaviour is and why it happens is beyond my understanding, but it is weird. It seems to be the interaction of CCleaner and Eraser free space wipes that is causing it - it had never happened until I ran the CCleaner free space wipe feature. I also hope I've explained it clearly - I know what I mean to say but explaining it isn't straightforward!

While I like the free space wipe feature I just wonder if the option to even do a free space wipe should be either moved in its entirety to Options - Advanced or maybe even moved to Recuva which seems to be the more logical application for it to run under.

perhaps it's meant to - let it run to the finish and your computer free space should show properly again. Eraser, another free space wipe program, works by filling up the free space with thousands of 42MB files which make the free space look as though its shrinking as the program runs (and a Windows warning message that the free space on the drive is running low actually appears near the end of the process). At the end of the process all the created files are then deleted and the free space returns. I'm assuming the free space wipe on CCleaner works the same.

I've just checked again and just loading CCleaner and then pressing Esc (without running any scan, wipe etc) closes the program. This must be quite unique. I've loaded a few programs on my computer and none of them except CCleaner close when Esc is pressed. It is indeed strange behaviour...

same here, just tried it and pressing Esc closes the whole program. I assume it should just abort the scan, wipe etc? Is it really a bug or a problem if it closes the program rather than just cancelling the current operation?

I still have a VHS player, I never record on it these days as I use a DVD recorder but I have dozens of TV programmes on VHS that I occasionally watch, mainly old Doctor Who episodes (I have about 100 of them) and Newcastle United (a football team, well they used to be a football team...) matches. I probably use my VHS player about once a fortnight.

I bought (and still quite like) Hybrid Theory and also bought the Somewhere I Belong CD single and like some of their other stuff but I wouldn't say I was a fan or anything. I can take or leave them. In the UK they now seem to be forever associated with the mash-up single they did with Jay-Z, Numb/Encore as it still continues to sell, some 4+ years after it was released as a single. It has overshadowed everything they have done since.

Merry Christmas to all!

ah, my misunderstanding. I thought you meant your computer was running XP.

perhaps your BIOS has been set to boot up from the floppy drive first, hence it flashes / clicks away before then booting from the next boot option, probably the hard drive. If you know how to access your BIOS you can change the boot order if you so wished. See the documentation for your motherboard if you want to change this option. Or if you know how to access the BIOS and feel comfortable changing settings in there, then change the boot order. This isn't the same as the problem outlined by Tom AZ though, as that seems to happen while the computer is up and running rather than at computer startup. Or at least I don't think it is, so it shouldn't be a BIOS issue for Tom. I don't have a floppy drive so have disabled the floppy drive option (which was enabled by default), but my boot order is set to CD drive first, then hard drive. This is because sometimes I use a Live Linux disk (which boots at computer startup from a CD) and it saves having to keep accessing the BIOS to change boot order. I also have a myriad of CDs for testing RAM, emergency startup and recovery disks etc, so again I have the choice of accessing these disks without having to mess about with changing settings in the BIOS in case of emergency. On my last computer which did have a floppy drive I had that drive set as the first boot option (hence the lights would flash, the drive click etc) because I had an emergency startup floppy disk.

answering my own post here: it must be some settings I used as the History file for RegSeeker has this for the latest version: Version 1.55 - Introducing Vista support (you will need to elevate UAC) ! - Improved backup/restore functions (double-click for opening in regedit) - Integrated Exclusion list editor with Import option - Fix issue with StreamMRU cleaning (quicklaunch/desktop icons reorganization)] - Safer registry cleaning results - some crashes fixed though it was this version I used but I did tick the "Clean StreamMRU/Streams keys" option in the Auto Clean option in Clean The Registry. Does anyone know why ticking this option would constantly affect icon positioning / quick launch toolbars if RegSeeker was only ran once? (apologies for going slightly off-topic here)

Quite a timely thread as I used RegSeeker (on a Windows XP computer) yesterday and immediately had problems with my desktop icons - I have them organised the way I want them but when I was restarting the computer they were changing position. I'd move them back, then restart - changed position again. I changed them back. Restart. Nothing I tried would get them to stay where I wanted and I googled extensively for hints on what to do (using suggestions such as unclick "Show Desktop Icons", then reclick and restart, click / unclick auto arrange, click / unclick Align To Grid, restart etc etc. Everytime I restarted the Auto Arrange was unticked and the icons were back in some sort of default order). I then tried to restore the backups RegSeeker had created but I kept getting a message that there was an "error accesing the registry" and the backups weren't merged into the registry. Not very useful! I should have used ERUNT to back up the registry beforehand. Eventually I had to give up and use System Restore - result: everything is working normal again, icons are in the order I want them and not in the order that the computer seems to think they should be when the computer restarts. Another problem after running RegSeeker was that my Quick Launch tool bar disappeared at startup and I had to keep reticking it on the task bar. Then the icon order on that was changed too. Again, after System Restore it is now perfectly fine after a computer restart I don't know what the problem was but I'm not running RegSeeker again. I did see posts at review sites where other people had this icon / quick launch tool bar problem after running regseeker and had to do a System Restore.

Hi Dennis My timeout is, and always has been, 0 seconds. I've never had any problems starting my computer. Should I change it? I always thought that option was meant for people who operate two or more systems on their computer - so it would display a list of operating systems available for a choice. I only have Windows XP on my computer, so I didn't think it would be needed.