My first post, so let me first say how impressed I am with CCleaner -- a truly first-rate app that became one of my all-time favorites within moments of using it.
In addition to using CCleaner for basic system cleaning, I've also found it very useful for a more specific task -- clearing font cache files. Admittedly, not many of you will have a need to do this, but maybe some of you will. See, I develop commercial fonts for a living, and sometimes I find myself frequently installing and uninstalling fonts in various stages of development, a process which occasionally causes XP and the apps I use to test fonts grief. But thanks to CCleaner, I now have a quick way to clear font cache files. If you find yourself experiencing wierdness with font menus, font display or printing, you can add the following to your Custom files list in CCleaner:
C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT
If you regularly use Adobe apps (including Adobe Type Manager or ATM Deluxe), you may also want to add the AdobeFnt.lst files to your Custom files. You'll find these in various directories, depending upon which Adobe apps are installed on your system. Here are some examples:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFnt10.lst
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\TypeSpt\AdobeFnt10.lst
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFnt.lst
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFntXX.lst (where 'XX' is a two-digit number)
You may want to first search your drive for "AdobeFnt*.lst" to see where they're all located and their specific 'XX' names. You can safely delete all of them (do not delete AdobeFnt.db files, however, but only the .lst files).
Note: If you add FNTCACHE.DAT to your Custom files, you will need to restart your machine after deleting it.
A suggestion for future versions of CCleaner: When adding files to the Custom list, it would be very helpful to have the ability to add a folder, but instead of deleting its entire contents (as this feature presently works), to be able to specify wildcards. For example, choose the Adobe\Fonts and Adobe\TypeSpt folders in the Common Files dir, and tell CCleaner to delete any *.lst files it finds there.
To the developer of CCleaner, many thanks for such a great utility. To any CCleaner users who might want more info about font caches, you can contact me via email (seanc at fontsite dot-diddly-ot com).
- Sean