Fully automatic CCleaning

Just thought it would be nice to have a true set it & forget it for CCleaner.

While it is very nice that you can set CCleaner to auto-run on startup, I thought it would be much nicer to include an option where a user can select a time of day as well as a day of the week to run. Or monthly, depending on need.

This seems like a much more logical step than having to manually load CCleaner each time you want to clean some trash.

Let the computer take care of the scheduling, & do it automatically, please! (Not just on every startup, either!)

It is known for Applications and also incessant Windows Updates to install things and for the installation to be incomplete until reboot,

after which installation is completed, probably using temporary "run-once-on-startup" files and registry keys that control the completion activity.

I consider it dangerous to have scheduled clean-ups that might remove these temporary things that may have just been created and not yet done their job.

It is known for Applications and also incessant Windows Updates to install things and for the installation to be incomplete until reboot,

after which installation is completed, probably using temporary "run-once-on-startup" files and registry keys that control the completion activity.

I consider it dangerous to have scheduled clean-ups that might remove these temporary things that may have just been created and not yet done their job.

This is why CCleaner has under advanced settings for it to not clean anything unless it has been 24 hours or more.

If this were dangerous, all users who have CCleaner set to clean on boot would be out of luck.

Which is why the 24 hour rule is there. To protect users.

This is why CCleaner has under advanced settings for it to not clean anything unless it has been 24 hours or more.

If this were dangerous, all users who have CCleaner set to clean on boot would be out of luck.

Which is why the 24 hour rule is there. To protect users.

It is no protection at all if the check-box is not checked.

I think I recently read a moderator's statement concerning whether it was 24 hours or 48 hours.

There are many TEMP folder possibilities in which these run-once things can happen,

and I do not know if this 24/48 hour feature applies to them all.

This 24/48 hour thing does not apply to "include" which a user may configure to purge junk deposited by his applications.

I am inclined to believe your theory may be correct and the typical user could be lucky unless the box is unchecked, but why risk it.

It is so much safer and better to only clean on shut-down and I always do that manually,

but refrain from cleaning if I am intending to finalise an installation.

Clean on shut-down is far superior to clean on power up where there is more than one user profile.

Clean on Startup results in Free space being wasted on junk that could have been purged if the other profile had been cleaned on shut-down.

I see nowhere where it is not just as safe to run CCleaner on startup as shutdown. There is no conceivable benefit to whether you do it one way or another. If you do it on shutdown, shutdown takes a moment longer, whereas on startup, startup takes a moment longer.

24 hr rule is standard & applies to pretty much all but includes.

user can select a time of day as well as a day of the week to run. Or monthly, depending on need.

You could do that via Windows Task Scheduler using CCleaner /AUTO

I don't know how much of an issue it could cause with things, however with other automatic system tasks like Automatic Updates you could just schedule the cleaning hours apart from when Automatic Updates are installed and other auto tasks.

I'll personally just clean manually myself.

You could do that via Windows Task Scheduler using CCleaner /AUTO

I don't know how much of an issue it could cause with things, however with other automatic system tasks like Automatic Updates you could just schedule the cleaning hours apart from when Automatic Updates are installed and other auto tasks.

I'll personally just clean manually myself.

Oh, on this system, I never used automatic updates for the last 5 years & never had a problem. Not from not having all updates applied, anyway.

I only use this system to test things, & 99% (maybe 100%) of my problems so far with it have been self induced (& totally not from not updating it).

I do, however, use Firefox instead of IE, windows built in firewall, & AVG.

All of the problems I had over the last 5 years with this system so far are from:

- Rogue program installations (certain programs, such as newer ones that have no AV pattern yet, can slip by the best AV defenses no matter how up to date)

- Using Internet Explorer (self explanatory... Active X + drive by downloads that automatically install & hijack your PC... All versions of IE)

- Trying to boot with an external drive attached, causing the computer to attempt to load from it & import the registry hives to the local drive.

- Inserting someone's flash drive with an autorun virus (testing to see what I could do/years back/when antivirus programs were a little lax)

- Misc. self caused problems in the name of research.

I honestly believe that 99% of the problem most people have is using internet explorer + installing rogue programs.

But there is a small percent of other things that can happen, so for most people, guess updates would be good.

For this system, I have it disabled since I use it primarily for testing & all my things are backed up.

I will have to check into how to compose a schedule like that. See how it works.

I see nowhere where it is not just as safe to run CCleaner on startup as shutdown.

You have seen it here already - I told you yesterday ! !

To repeat with expansion :-

It is so much safer and better to only clean

manually after due consideration of all that has been done immediately after it was done whilst you remember what you did.

This is convenient and has a SAFE default consequence of no removal unless manually invoked.

Automatic cleaning is also convenient but has a DANGEROUS default of removal unless Auto is manually disabled.

Start-up is far too late to think about cancelling a start-up auto-clean,

but if you never think at shutdown and manually clean you are unlikely to think about cancelling Auto-clean

There is no conceivable benefit to whether you do it one way or another.

Yes there is. I already told you

Clean on shut-down is far superior to clean on power up where there is more than one user profile.

Clean on Startup results in Free space being wasted on junk that could have been purged if the other profile had been cleaned on shut-down.

In addition to a waste of Free space which is what CCleaner is designed to fight,

this junk is always changing and using different sectors which greatly increases partition image backup file archives.

By providing a desktop shortcut that runs CCleaner in /AUTO /SHUTDOWN mode my daughter can easily double click and leave the computer to clean and shutdown.

This does not violate my principles, she has no Admin privilege so she cannot install anything that would use "run-once-on-startup" files etc.

24 hr rule is standard & applies to pretty much all but includes.

Is that really true ? Where did you read that.

At one time it was documented as 48 hours, not 24,

and I think I recently saw posts concerning about a discrepancy in the ACTUAL number of hours and the documentation.

So far as CCleaner GUI is concerned, the relevant check box under Options => Advanced is reading

"Only delete files in Windows Temp folders older than 24 hours"

I would not like to stipulate exactly where the boundaries are for "Windows Temp Folders"

But I can tell you that every day CCleaner will purge brand new Firefox caches as soon as I close Firefox,

even though I have the standard default "... older than 24 hours" checked, and you cannot get more temporary than FF caches.

Please remember that "older than 24 hours" does not mean what the typical citizen might think.

It is Not based upon the last "modified" or "Created" time stamp, it is last "Accessed",

and "Accessed" not only refers to reading the contents,

it also refers to when the file name was presented on screen by Windows Explorer.

I have seen two different moderators recommend un-checking this "24 hour" check box for people who wanted to remove what was often accessed just because that is the way the Windows is, and NOT because any information was obtained from the file.

These people would be victims of a Fully Automatic Clean regime that assumes no other deviations from a normal configuration.

EDIT - P.S.

If you do it on shutdown, shutdown takes a moment longer, whereas on startup, startup takes a moment longer.

Agreed, but is that relevant ?

I wake up and get civilised in the bathroom, etc.

Eventually I turn on the kettle then the computer, and by the time I have made instant coffee I have logged onto the computer and can do what I want, I do not have to wait for CCleaner to clean junk because that happens at shutdown.

I am at the computer because I want to use the computer and I WANT IT NOW.

It would be intolerable if CCleaner was to make me twiddle my thumbs waiting for it to do its thing.

When I have finished with the computer then, unless I am finalising an installation,

I just double click for CCleaner /AUTO /SHUTDOWN mode and

I do not twiddle my thumbs waiting for CCleaner to do its thing - I trust it to do what it is told without me watching and waiting.

Some things I can see your point in.

Can you please explain your point concerning it is far better to clean on shutdown than startup because on startup, there are more user profiles?

There are always the same number of profiles, unless a user adds or deletes them. I don't understand this part of your logic, since if I wanted to clean my profile, & I had CCleaner set to clean when I logged in, it would still clean the exact same amount of junk.

True, you can only be logged into 1 profile at a time. Excuse me, you can be logged into several, but you can only really use 1 at a time. You either have to switch users, or logout. The profiles are always there, even when you are logged into your profile. You just don't normally see them unless you either reboot or logout of the profile you are on.

As for the free space issue, my drive is large enough, that 2 or 3 mb here & there, or even 200 mb, or 2,000 mb don't affect it that much on startup.

I usually defrag every month or so, after cleaning, so I can tell you that I don't really notice that much difference in shutdown or boot up. I usually boot in 25 seconds or so, so I am not worried.

*Edit... And why would you suggest running CCleaner at shutdown instead of boot, since as you stated earlier, programs can be installed on the computer stating that they need to reboot to complete the setup. Wouldn't that like, erase those files before they had a chance to complete?

I think cclean on reboot is much better, because most programs have a chance to complete before CCleaner kicks in to start cleaning. Just sayin!

Can you please explain your point concerning it is far better to clean on shutdown than startup because on startup, there are more user profiles?

Sorry, not quite what I said, but I should have spelt it out with an illustration from my experience.

Often I would find much less free space when I booted up than when I shut down.

When I looked in the Event logs I would see that my daughter had logged in and used the computer since I had shut down,

and I would again request that she run CCleaner before shutting down to give me a "clean slate".

I found it was more effective to put a SHUTDOWN link on the "All User" desktop,

then when she finished using the computer a double-click would clean her profile (to which I had no access) and then shutdown.

As for the free space issue, my drive is large enough, that 2 or 3 mb here & there, or even 200 mb, or 2,000 mb don't affect it that much on startup.

My C:\ partition is 25 GB with 8 GB free.

For me it is the principle of the thing.

I have installed CCleaner to eliminate junk, and if my daughter has been browsing and not used CCleaner then all my endeavours have been wasted ! !

My views on junk are also influenced by my early years,

my first P.C. was a second-hand ex-lease Super Deluxe model with an oversized 20 MB HDD (50,000 times smaller than my new 1 TB drive).

I also found only a few years ago that startup was massively delayed whilst windows was memorising all the files it could see,

but that was with FAT32 partitions and I think this is no longer a factor.

I accept junk files do not cause startup delay on NTFS.

BUT I HATE BLOAT AND JUNK, and if I see it I want it gone.

I now have a special script to purge all the language subdirectories other the en-US from Xmarks.

*Edit... And why would you suggest running CCleaner at shutdown instead of boot, since as you stated earlier, programs can be installed on the computer stating that they need to reboot to complete the setup. Wouldn't that like, erase those files before they had a chance to complete?

I fully agree, which is why I stated in Post #4

It is so much safer and better to only clean on shut-down and I always do that manually,

but refrain from cleaning if I am intending to finalise an installation.

Incidentally, on XP a bonus for CCleaning on Shutdown when I have not installed anything that needs finalising is that it stops M.S. sneak attack patches,

because I included for special attention the purging of "C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\".

Unfortunately that does not seem to work on Windows 7.

I will however concede that cleaning only at start-up ensures finalisation of whatever may have downloaded and started installing during the day,

and may be simpler for the beginner.

Regards

Alan

As for the free space issue, my drive is large enough, that 2 or 3 mb here & there, or even 200 mb, or 2,000 mb don't affect it that much on startup.

I usually defrag every month or so, after cleaning, so I can tell you that I don't really notice that much difference in shutdown or boot up. I usually boot in 25 seconds or so, so I am not worried.

Sorry, I forgot to note :-

I do not think the amount of junk that CCleaner removes has any effect upon start-up time so this is not affected by whether there is junk waiting to be cleaned,

but if CCleaner does its thing at start-up then it is consuming CPU cycles that I am waiting to use,

whereas when it cleans upon shutdown I have finished with the computer and all I ask is that it safely power down before I go for a walk in the park or go to bed.

Regards

Alan