nukecad

If the time estimated keeps changing then something is still running, so it doesn't seem to be 'stuck'. (TBH I don't take much notice of such 'estimated' timers in anything, estimate is just another word for guess). TB sized drives can take time, the bigger the drive the longer it will take to scan. If it's stopped increasing the 'files found' then that could simply indicate that it's scanning parts of the drive with nothing on there to find, but it still has to scan them byte-by-byte to determine that there is nothing there. I do note that it's now 8 hours since you made this post, so hopefully it's finished scanning by now?

@JudyCochranI have flagged this for staff attention. (To my eye there are a few issues with that email).

@hazelnutI've now posted the original .eml fie and a conversion to PDF in the secure staff area. Because it contains a licence key (whether real or not) I'll remove the copies from here. @muddiedo you by any chance have more than one licence key?

Good to hear you got things back as they were. (Have you checked that your audio is working OK?) I'd suggest that you don't use Driver Updater (any driver updater) again, but of course that's my personal opinion and whether or not you use one is your choice.

@hazelnut It opens for me with the built in Windows mail app, try associating .eml with mail @muddieDon't post either one - but are you saying that the key in that email is not your key. Sorry I have to rush out for an hour or two (UC appointment so I can't miss it)- Hazelnut you may want to remove those attachments once you have got the key details

Sometimes things get stuck in loops on computers, even Windows Updates get stuck in a loop occassionally. I agree that is does seem remiss that there is no 'Cancel' button in the Driver Updater, I'll point it out to the staff as an improvement to make. (I've never used Driver Updater myself so had never noticed). When something does get stuck like this then you have 2 choices. You can leave it running to see if it 'unsticks' itself after time. You can ignore what it says about not disconnecting or turning off, and abort whatever is stuck. Usually though if you wait for the first you end up doing the second eventually. (I know it can be scary ignoring such 'don't turn off' warnings, but if it is genuinely stuck then there is nothing else you can do - it's less scary once you have done it few times for different freezes). Personally in a situation like this I'd force close CCleaner and then Restart (not Shutdown/Boot) my machine. Doing a Restart gives a clean-out of what was in the System Memory Kernel. To close CCleaner I'd first try the 'X' in the top right corner, and if that won't close it then I'd open Task Manager and 'End Task' for CCleaner. Then I'd Restart the machine. I'm only guessing here, but it's looks like the kind of 'stick' that could happen if the new driver cannot be fetched from it's server. (Maybe it's been moved, or withdrawn? Maybe that particular server is offline? Maybe your AV/firewall is blocking the download?). Again though I'd have thought there should be a 'timeout' error check included for if that happens.

I'm not sure why you get the pop-up if you have that option unticked, (is this CCleaner Free version or Pro version, what version number is it?) Could you post a screenshot of your Smart Cleaning settings? And one of the pop-up if you can capture it? And just as a check can you confirm which Windows version you have? However the discrepancy of 1+GB found but only 500MB actually being there to clean may be because of a corrupted Recycle Bin, it's a long standing bug in Windows but it's easily fixed. See here for more info and how to fix a corrupted bin:

You need to register/activate CCleaner Pro using the individual licence key that was sent to you in your confirmation email. See this for how to do that: https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/articles/204043844-How-to-register-and-activate-CCleaner-Professional

Health Check uses its own rules which you can't change. It's meant as a simple-to-use so has no settings that you can change or customise. Custom Clean on the other hand is meant to be customised, any ticks/unticks in the cleaning lists, includes and excludes, cookies to keep, etc. apply to Custom Clean not Health Check. There are a few things you can do, in order of simplicity: Use Custom Clean and not Health Check. Custom Clean doesn't even look for software updates. (There's a seperate tool for if you want to do that). You can go to Options>Settings and change the 'CCleaner Home Screen' so that it shows you Custom Clean whenever you open CCleaner. If you do use Health Check then once it has analyzed you can click on 'Security' and in the screen that comes up untick any software that it has found to update. But you will need to do that each and every time that you run Health Check and it finds some software to update. (and once it's found something it will find it every time until you update it). You could disconnect from the internet before running Health Check, If it can't connect to the internet then it can't check for software updates. Obviously simply using Custom Clean is the easiest option of the three, it will never check for software updates, and it gives you more control over cleaning than Health Check does.

I see from your latest screenshots that the 'Used' has gone down from 570 GB to 225GB, presumably that was all the DF optimize files which have now been deleted? The File only defrag should take about 20 to 30 minutes in my guess - that is a guess but from experience of doing it on drives with about the same level of file fragmentation. Various things come into play, such as your CPU speed, how much RAM you have, whether it's connected internally by SATA or externally by a USB cable, and of course how fast your disc can physically read/write. (You appear to have a 1.8 Ghz CPU that boosts to 4.43 GHZ, 8 GB of RAM, and it's an internal drive - so it should be reasonably quick). Depending on those various factors it could be half that time, it could be twice that time. I can only take a guess from experience of similar defrags I've done in the past. Freespace defrag, again going from my previous experiences, I would expect to take around the 3 to 4 hour mark from what was showing on your latest screenshot for a 1TB drive. (225 GB of files is quite a bit to shuffle about). But again there are too many factors to give anything more than an estimate, which could be wildly out. Remember that once you have done this initial sorting out then future regular (file only) defrags are going to be much quicker because they'll have less work to do. Like anything else, once you have put in the initial hard work it's easier to keep on top of things in future. You can always 'Stop' a defrag if you think it's taking too long - but do it properly and after clicking 'Stop' let Defraggler finish what it is currently working on and tidy up before closing it. (Otherwise you might get lots of temporary files left over, LOL). (You can then re-Analyze later to see what has been done and what is still needed). And just to add a bit more to the HDD being seen as a SSD (and vice-versa) situation. Here is one from 2016 where Windows own built in Defragmenter was wrongly seeing a HDD as an SSD, so as you can see it's not a new problem and not just Defraggler. (And the guy there fixed it by running winsat formal). https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-defrag-showing-hdd-as-ssd/e7e93769-98e3-4cbf-8320-63c1e5b413c0 One thing - did you Restart your computer (Restart not Shutdown/Boot) after runing winsat? It's usually a good idea to do the occasional Restart to clear Windows of old information. (A Shutdown doesn't clear as much).

I would run the winsat formal command anyway. It is not unusual for Windows to have differing information in different places, so it would depend just what Defraggler is reading, and what file from. I think that Defraggler reads it from the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Defraggler doesn't try to determine the drive type itself, it would need a large database to store a record of every type of drive, so software such as Defraggler usually queries the Windows information and trusts what Windows says it is. It's not just Defraggler that has this issue with HDD/SSD drive types, if you do a websearch you'll see it's a common issue, and even Windows built in 'Defragment and Optimise Drives' gets it wrong for some users. So what happened to you was a combination of a couple things. Defraggler though the drive was a SSD and so was Optimizing it instead of Defragging/Consolidating - Then that Optimisation got stopped a couple of times, for whatever reason, and so each time it was stopped left stray files behind taking up space. You just need to clean those stray files up - and then start again using the correct defragmenting: First - If you haven't already - then using File Explorer manually delete all of the 'DFOptimize' files that Defraggler couldn't clean up because it was stopped a couple of times. (Then empty your Recycle bin so they are completely gone from the Windows file information). That should give you (most of) the 'lost' space back. Next - If you haven't already - Run the winsat formal command to update Windows records of what hardware you have in your machine. If that updates things so that Defraggler then sees the correct drive type all well and good. However if Defraggler is still seeing it as the wrong type then as you are sure that your drive is a HDD you can ignore what Defraggler thinks it is. Next - To get the file fragmentation (red blocks) down do a 'Files only' Defragment as per the link I gave in my first post above. Defraggler will warn you that it's not what you should be doing on a SSD, but as you are sure it isn't a SDD anyway then just ignore that warning, click Yes, and carry on. If you want to you could then do a 'Defrag Freespace', see my first post above, to get clusters together with less white gaps ie. Consolidation. It will take time to defrag the freespace. Again Defraggler will warn you about doing that on a SSD, but again as you are sure it's a HDD you can ignore that warning. Once you've done all that, or as much as you want to, then please come back and report the results. (I have noticed something else in you last screenshot, (the pagefile), it's not very important and I don't want to confuse you with it here. One step at a time hey)

Ah, the plot thickens and we have the wrongly identified drive issue. (Apparently there's a lot of it about). Defraggler goes by what Windows tells it the drive is, and Windows is known to get it wrong. It can happen both ways with Windows seeing HDDs as SSDs or seeing SSDs as HDDs. I've not had it happen myself yet. However one fix I have heard of is to use the command winsat formal in an elevated command window. That makes Windows re-assess all your hardware. (Of course Windows might still get it wrong). To open an elevated command window, click the Start icon and type Command, that will bring up the Command Prompt app, click Run as administrator. Say Yes to the UAC. When the elevated command window opens type in winsat formal press enter and let it do its thing. It should only take a minute or two. Restart your machine and see if the drive is now being recognised correctly. Reports say that sometime it works, sometimes not.

As Hazelnut points out all your screenshots show an SSD and not a HDD. They work very differently, and need treating differently. The fact that there are DFOptimize files also says that it is an SDD and not a HDD. (Wish you had posted those screenshots before, but not to worry). So forget all of my above post, that advice is for a HDD and not for a SDD. - See below for new advice more relevant to a SSD. If you have started doing any of it on your SSD then simply click the 'Cancel' button and wait for it to tidy up what it's currently doing up and stop. The DFOptimze files will have been left behind when the Optimize got interrupted: Yes that is important with an SSD - Because of the 'stoppages' defraggler was unable to clean up those temporary files it had made, so they got left behind taking up disc space. You can simply delete those DFOptimise files yourself. As I said above I personally would not use a 3rd party tool such as Defraggler on an SSD; let Windows and the SSD itself look after it. (Windows will ocasionally 'TRIM' the SSD, and then the 'garbage collection' built into the SSD itself will organise it as needed). Of course it's your choice of what you want to use. This is my SSD in this laptop, as you can see Windows is set to Optimise it weekly. (Windows sets this automatically when an SSD is first installed, you can change it but there is no real need). It's also showing that it has been '6 days since last retrim', on 20/02/2022 at 12:23 - so it's due to do another one later today at 12:23 (about 3 minutes from now). So now we know that you have a SSD the advice changes: I would firstly delete those DFOptimize files to get your disc space back. Then open Windows 'Defragment and Optimise Drives' and check that it's set to run weekly like mine is above. If you want to you could then click on 'Optimize' there to make Windows run one straight away and TRIM the SSD.

Hi JeffS, let's see if we can sort out what has happened here. Firstly there is no problem using Defraggler with HDDs, people have been doing that for years. You can also use it to Optimize SSDs, but TBH I leave that to Windows and the SSD itself. This advice is for a HDD. (not for a SSD). You said in your first post that Defraggler has not done what you expected, often that's a case of not understanding that there are two different types of 'Defragging'. And yes, the stoppages during defragging may have helped make things more messy but we should be able to clear that up again. From the time it took I'm guessing that you just clicked the 'Defrag' button after analyzing. What happened? As said there two processes that are both referred to as defragging - Defragmenting and Consolidation - and they do very different things. Defragmenting is about getting each file in one piece, so that it can be loaded slightly quicker. Consolidation is about getting all the files together in a block in the least number of clusters, so they leave more 'free clusters' on the drive. Consolidation is what was wanted/needed in the days of smaller drives, and so it is what most people historically think of as 'defragmenting' even though it's really Consolidation. With todays larger drives it's not needed as much, and because it can take ages on a large drive experienced users avoid doing it. With a 1TB drive that's over 70% full a drive consolidation can take a long time, even after you had removed the 500GB of files the remaining files may still have been scattered all over that 70% of the drive so would take some time to consolidate. To pack the files into the least number of clusters Consolidation can actually leave some files more fragmented than before, which seems to be what you are seeing here. ie. The files have been moved into a smaller space on the drive (which I think is what you wanted) but to do that they have been fragmented more than they were before. So what to do now to clean things up again? By default Defragler does a mix of both Consolidation and Defragmentation - but you can tell it to do only one or the other. With todays larger drives it's usually better just to do a 'File Defragmentation' and forget about the consolidation. So the first thing to do now is to get your file fragmentation down by doing a 'Files only' defragment. See this link for how to do a 'Files only' defragment without the consolidation, that will get the files into one piece each and the fragmentation percentage down, it will also be much quicker than trying to consolidate the whole drive. https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/59792-need-3rd-option-besides-quick-defrag-and-defrag/#comment-326076 Having done that do another Analyze and look at the Drive Map to see where the files are located. I think they may possibly be reasonably consolidated already. For example this is a 500GB drive with 65GB used and 1% file fragmentation (the red bits). It's reasonably consolidated, most of the clusters are together at the start, so I wouldn't bother consolidating it anymore. If you do still want to consolidate the drive to try and get 'all the files at the start with no gaps' (the Holy Grail of drive consolidation, it's hardly ever achieved) then do a consolidation only - that will still take a long time with a 1TB drive. To do a 'Consolidation only' use Action>Advanced>Defrag Freespace. Don't use the "Allow fragmentation" option, that will just fragment your files again to try and pack them in tighter. Once you have got the files consolidated you should normally stick with just doing 'Files Only' from then on.

Just a thought, If this is an old phone that hasn't been in use for a while (year or two) then has the google account associated with it lapsed in some way? That might give problems with paying in the play store. Most phones are given a new/different account when you first set them up, very few people transfer an old google account to a new device.

You have actually posted this twice already in the Driver Updater section; once on 18th November 2021 then again on 28th November 2021. You got a reply from a Piriform staff member each time. https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/61520-driver-update-issue-57-drivers-needed/#comment-332788 https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/61589-driver-update-is-very-wrong-says-i-need-57-drivers/#comment-333016

Are these your own files? or are they System Files? If they are System Files they are probably protected, or in a protected location. Some System Files need to have duplicates for your computer to work properly, and if you remove then odd things can start to happen. Unless you are an advanced user trying to fix a broken computer you should leave the System files alone, tell Duplicate Finder to Ignore them.

Whether or not a driver NEEDS to be updated is a matter of opinion. Every such driver updater app is written by a different team of people with different opinions, so will recommend different things. Many advanced computer user do not use such driver updaters. And they will/may also prevent window from updating drivers unnecessarily. Unless there is a particular problem with a driver then they leave their drivers alone. (Old saying - If it isn't broken then why try to fix it?). In the end it's your choice whether to use one or not, and which one you use. Note that just because a driver has an update does not always mean that update is compatible with your computer, it may not be. (It may change nothing or in the worst case it may even cause things to stop working on your computer until you roll-back to the older driver). The other tweaks that you mention are Windows settings and nothing to do with drivers. But yes, advanced users will adjust some of those (as well as some others), your other app is just offering you a way to do that.

Sorry, lots of questions to try and work out what may have happened: Which did you run, CCleaner, Defraggler, or both? You said you did an analyze, was that an analyze in CCleaner or one in Defraggler? Was Defraggler seeing the drive correctly as a SSD? (It will Optimize SSDs, not Defragment them). You say that you "tried to do analyze and the defragmentation" - did you stop a defrag running yourself, if so how did you stop it? If you ran CCleaner as well then did you use the Driver Updater? Is this an internal or external drive? If internal then is it a partion on a bigger drive, or is it a seperate physical drive? (Often a large capacity drive will be partitioned into more than one drive letter). And, it may help if you also tell us which Windows version (build) you are running. End of questions (for now). Presumably your system was seeing the drive before, so the first thing to do is to is a Restart of the computer (Restart, not Shutdown/Boot) to see if it can recognise the drive then. The most common causes of a SSD not being seen by the BIOS are: The SATA power and data cords are faulty/not fully connected. (USB to SATA cable if it's an external drive). The SSD drive is not initilised/formatted. The driver for the SSD is not enabled in the BIOS settings. (Or the driver is the wrong one). There is a physical problem with the motherboard connector pins. (Usually only a problem for newly fitted Internal Drives). The drive itself is malfunctioning/defective or broken. If your computer was seeing it before then the formatting shouldn't be a problem, nor should the motherboard connector pins (unless the computer has had a thump), but any of the others could be. Cables (and drives) come lose (or get damaged), drivers get mistakenly updated to a version that doesn't work, drives sometimes just stop working. If you could answer the questions above then we may be able to suggest which is the most likely cause, and how to try and fix it.

As long as it OK now then that's the main thing. An occastional restart is always a good idea, and if you start seing browser skipping in CCleaner again you now know that a restart should fix that. It would be nice to know just what was causing it, but sometimes you never do find out.

@MeganCCleanerIs there any update on this issue yet?

@Yuppers Are you aware that you can still update your Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 for free if you want to? (Or even to Windows 11 if you machines hardware can support it). Microsoft said they stopped the free update years ago - but they never turned it off and it still works, this article was updated last month (Jan 14 2022): https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

Good to hear that you got it sorted out.

Health Check will not remove restore points, CCleaner has a seperate tool in the Tools menu for managing existing restore points. Windows itself will occasionally remove old restore points, that can depend on how much space you have allocated for them, as well as other factors. Windows itself will automatically remove restore points that are more than 90 days old. That's because they will be so 'out of sync' with changes to the filesystem that they are probably useless anyway. Running Windows built in DisK CleanUp can also remove restore points. Having said all that - By default Windows System Restore utility only shows you the 2 latest restore points, you need to click on "Show more restore points" to see earlier ones. OR As said above CCleaner has a tool for managing restore points, that shows all the available ones. so you might want to take a look at that, in CCleaner click on Tools then System Restore.

Those cookies could be coming from many things, not just from Edge. It isn't just browsers that can put cookies on your computer these days. Live Tiles on the start menu, News and Interests on the task bar, email apps, etc. - basically anything that can connect to the web can/will put cookies on your computer. Many of them will use Internet Explorer's storage spaces to save their cookies and files, but as IE will at sometime be discontinued some have started to use Edge's storage spaces. They use those storage locations simply because they are always there and it's more convienient than creating their own. Because the files are saved in those storage locations CCleaner sees them as coming from IE or Edge, no matter where they actualy came from. It is also not unusual for files, cookies, etc. to come straight back after you have cleaned them. For why that happens, and what you can do about stopping some of it, have a read of the second half of this: https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043