Please do not advise people to turn off system restore MrDon without first checking that they have other means of recovery in place in case things go wrong.
@DeltaLima
Can you give us an update after following some of the various members suggestions ?
They can re-enable system restore afterwards. I do not know why running just the cleanup utility of CCleaner should be capable of causing system damage as it only deletes temporary files from program installations from C:\Windows\Temp as well as the local user temp dir, in addition to web browser temp directories.
I will briefly outline (in the advent you were trying to figure out the reason) why each of the items below were suggested.
- Go to the options in CCleaner & turn on the 3 pass file deletion (secure delete) & make sure you have checkmarked Wipe Free Space option. - This was suggested, because when you delete files, windows does not fully delete files, but simply removes key pointers to them in the system registry & a few other places making them "dissappear" from sight, but not actually be gone. By using secure delete to overwrite the deleted files, it should render them un-recoverable & thus unplayable.
- Turn off the Windows 7 System Restore (right click my computer/properties & turn off the system restore) - This was suggested as System Restore on Vista & 7 appear to react differently than on XP, & are able to save revisions of files (multiple copies) in restore points. Turning off the restore points eliminates the possibility that he should delete a file but an older copy from some System Restore point should become activated & playable by whatever process.
- Make sure you close WMP totally out (not minimized) - This was suggested as "closing" the media player may simply be minimizing it. Checking that it is totally closed as opposed to having a setting activated which could minimize it is very important. This is because Media Player may store a temporary copy of certain files in memory as part of it's buffer management to reduce or minimize jerkiness/pauses in media playback.
- Run CCleaner as Admin - Running as admin may solve problems in situations where they are running an app in a restricted user account environment, as well as other potential problems in secure deletion under normal process parameters under Vista or 7.
- Try to play the file - Suggested because after running the above steps, then we can by process of elimination, know more fully about what is happening & whether it was really CCleaner's fault or simply some stored copy of the movie being played, or some other glitch present.
Hopefully, the above explanations will clearly indicate the reasoning behind each suggestion given.
Of course, per Hazelnut's suggestion, please be sure that you have a backup of everything before beginning. There is a freeware Drive Image XML that can make an exact image of your drive using Volume Shadow Copying while in Windows with no need to shut down/hot swap drives.
This program should alleviate any fears or worries that Hazelnut has posted above. I have tested Drive Image XML & it works great. You can easily restore any image it creates if something happens to cause err or problems. Again, this utility can be run "hot", or that is to say, from within Windows while Windows is running without any need to shutdown or do DOS imaging commands/DOS based programs/Norton Ghosting etc.
This is much simpler than many utilities out there since it can be run from within Windows itself. Afterwards, if this still has not solved your problem, please feel free to post back up here, & also re-enable system restore so it can resume the process of creating return points on your system.
If Hazel has any questions, or if anyone else has any questions, I will most gladly answer them. I do believe I have covered all of Hazel's concerns, objections, or questions. However, if any questions do remain, please post them here & I will answer them.
Thank you!