New (to me) identification risk that needs cleaning.

[CCman]

Hi

 

Firstly thank you for CCleaner !!

 

Could you have a look at this software please ?

 

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

 

You will se that it can find entries in the registry that relate to hardware (USB Flash Drives, mobile phone etc) that have been connected to a computer.

 

Could you please make this part of the CCleaner registry clean up or perhaps part of the normal clean ?

 

Thank you.

[marmite]

Hi CCman, welcome to the forums

 

One of the purposes of the data in this part of the registry is to catalogue the usb hardware and its associated software so that the computer functions properly when you plug and remove different devices, without having to keep reinstalling drivers.

 

Your idea is interesting, but I don't think it would be a good thing to add this to CCleaner for several reasons:

 

1) Since these aren't registry inconsistencies, this wouldn't be appropriate to add to the registry cleaner section. So that leaves the cleaning part of the app. The entries here include any usb device, including those integral to the smooth running of your computer so you couldn't offer a blanket 'wipe all' option. That means you'd need to offer the choice to remove on an individual basis but:

 

2) If you did that people would end up deleting essential entries by mistake.

 

3) Many devices have multiple/associated entries which increases the chance of 2) above. And it may not be possible to work out what the associations are automatically.

 

and

 

3) The cleaning part of the app doesn't lend itself to offering options like that anyway, unless of course you added a whole new section.

 

Moreover

 

4) These aren't just singular references in the registry. They have device drivers associated with them and I suspect you can't just start removing these entries without having to take care of the associated items as well.

 

5) Even if you went ahead and removed the device drivers to keep things consistent and tidy, people may not realise the consequences. If the driver is on a separate disk and they come to want to reinstall they may find themselves stuck!

 

USB Dev View itself doesn't actually give you the option to delete stuff - and knowing Nirsoft tools I think it would do if it was that simple. It does give you the option to uninstall (e.g. your 'previously used devices' idea) ... but that presumably goes the whole hog of removing the driver ... and that's more than just 'tidying a registry entry'. If you want to do that then I suggest you either uninstall the appropriate software or you use the uninstall feature within USB Device View.

 

Basically I think this is too much of a specific ad hoc task, to be undertaken by someone who knows what they're looking at, to be put into a clean-up utility like CCleaner.

[Andavari]

Wouldn't want that in CCleaner myself especially since the freeware NirSoft tool already has it covered properly and can deal with it. That and the hardware issues or annoyances it would cause, uh huh, I wouldn't want that on my system being a "normal" behaviour of the cleaning tool.

[CCman]

Hi marmite

 

Thank you for your detailed reply !

 

I will think about what you have said but I thought I should reply.

 

As far as I am aware I am not having any problems deleting these entries using the nirsoft software linked above. I have been doing this since I found it with no problems so far as I can tell.

 

It is quite surprising just how much is stored there, my friends phones etc from a year or so ago when they put some pictures on my computer for me. All this of course doesn?t really matter but I simply don?t like leaving stuff like this around on my drive.

 

It does give you the option to uninstall (e.g. your 'previously used devices' idea) ... but that presumably goes the whole hog of removing the driver ... and that's more than just 'tidying a registry entry'.

 

I don?t know for certain but I have scanners, printers and flash drives which I have cleared with no apparent problems. I just plug them back in again and everything is fine, however it said that my scanner may need a re-boot but it actually worked without ! I am using XP Pro SP3.

 

I guess this won?t be in CCleaner then, so I will just keep using what I have now.

 

Thanks again for your reply.

[marmite]

As far as I am aware I am not having any problems deleting these entries using the nirsoft software linked above. I have been doing this since I found it with no problems so far as I can tell.

CCman - when you say 'deleting' entries with USB Dev View what do you mean? There is no delete option - are you uninstalling? If so, then as per my earlier post it's not just as simple as removing the registry entry. That's where I was going with it's too complicated/indiscriminate to do as a normal CCleaner option.