I have been using CC Cleaner for years with great results but while asking a question in the Microsoft Community I came across this recommendation. Do any of you have any comments to share on this? It would be appreciated. I Xed out my name
Thank you,
TomS
Hello XXXXXX XXXXX
Your question on <a href="https://answers.microsoft.com/" rel="external nofollow">Microsoft Community</a> has received a reply from Rob Koch.
Sorry Thomas, but CCleaner is a worthless toy at best and dangerous to your system stability at worst.
Microsoft has recommended against the use of any registry cleaner for several years now, though some in the user helper community had been recommending against these for several years before that.
Microsoft support policy for the use of registry cleaning utilities
I had tried CCleaner myself in the past for the registry and found several items it was offering to remove that would affect the operation of the "Install on First Use" feature that was common to all Microsoft applications such as Office and many others from 3rd-parties as well. This isn't something that most consumers would recognize even if they saw it and removing these would break the operation of these additional application features if someone tried to use them.
Those are the types of flaws that registry cleaners are typically full of and one of the several reasons that Microsoft doesn't support their use as listed in the document above.
As for file cleaning, Windows provides the built-in Disk Cleanup utility that allows the PC user to remove the most common and helpful temporary, log or system files. Though some of these files will be automatically removed from a system after a period of time by default anyway, this utility allows them to removed immediately if desired.
So though CCleaner is probably the most reputable of the programs claiming to do these things, if you'll read registry document fully and try the Disk Cleanup utility, you'll find that CCleanup is basically unnecessary and as with all registry cleaners, potentially dangerous. In fact, CCleaner specifically has a bad history of removing files that affect both Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender in ways that make it appear to be malfunctioning, so I personally have little patience for those choosing to use it.
I don't say that there aren't a handful of useful programs out there, but if most people would start by learning what's already built into Windows first and only then decide if they truly need something additional, they'd find they could avoid a lot of technical issues and potential grief from supposedly "free" software that of course really isn't today. Free today basically means at best that you'll be nagged to death by ads or pointless notifications trying to sell you something and at worst that other unwanted software (PUPs) or malware will tag along with it.
Rob