In XP there are a few things that can be cleaned that I don't remember seeing in CCleaner, but show up under Disk Cleanup utility or appear to be directories safe to clean...
- Downloaded Installations (C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations) (Can get pretty huge depending on how much you do on a computer.)
- Catalog files for the Content Indexer (Files stored by the indexing service. These files are left over from a previous indexing operation & can be safely deleted.)
I think the downloaded installations directory should be safe
I've removed that whole directory on my system with no ill effects. I've only seen some Microsoft XP Powertoys put the MSI setup file in there, I've never seen anything else go in there though.
The 'Downloaded Program Files' directory however shouldn't be messed with.
The 'Downloaded Program Files' directory however shouldn't be messed with.
That seems to be a consensus. But I'm hoping someone can explain why, if Disk Cleaner can safely delete these files, why it is unsafe for CCleaner to do so. Just wondering.
Because messing with it can open a can of worms, and result into a rather difficult approach to fixing an issue. Such a case is some online services such as online virus scanning, etc.
some ActiveX & javas live there I think (not on pc can't check)
Yes. I can't remember the name of it, it was that free Microsoft online virus scanning service that if you manually cleaned out that folder you'd need a miracle worker to get it working again as in updating and uninstalling it became difficult too.
Cleaning it out like I already pointed out does cause problems with other online virus scanners too.
I learnt to distrust Disk Cleanup when the XP Operating System refused to trust it, and my system was trashed so bad I had to restore partition C:\ from a backup image.
Disk Cleanup compresses files that have not been "recently used".
It decided to do this to a system file that was under Windows File Protection.
Windows objected to the replacement by a substitute that did not match registration manifests or whatever,
and the System File Check was useless because it demanded Installation Disks which were NOT part of the pre-installed package.
Windows does not trust Disk Cleanup, so why should I ?
I consider Disk Cleanup reasonable safe - but not a Gold Standard for safety.
I learnt to distrust Disk Cleanup when the XP Operating System refused to trust it, and my system was trashed so bad I had to restore partition C:\ from a backup image.
It trashed my system a few years back too after some Microsoft Update did something rather the other with it.