Registry cleaner

[mr don]

I love CCleaner, but I ran a side by side test to try to fix a problem that I was having.

 

Sadly, CCleaner found 3 registry entries as safe to remove.

Another found 298.

 

See the pics to see what I mean.

 

All the additional entries are 100% safe to remove & caused no problems to remove. In looking at the pic, many were still being referenced in the registry after being run from a temp dir long ago, or other files simply no longer existed...

 

My suggestion is to improve the part that scans for files that no longer exist, please.

Look at the pictures & the file paths...

 

Thanks!

[hazelnut]

MrDon this is the area for ccleaner suggestions, not for comparing it to what other cleaners remove and then saying that in your opinion they were all safe to remove.

[mr don]

MrDon this is the area for ccleaner suggestions, not for comparing it to what other cleaners remove and then saying that in your opinion they were all safe to remove.

 

Thanks Hazel! I realize that.

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The photos posted are not meant to be advertisements for other programs.

They are meant to show that:

 

A - My suggestion to improve Registry Cleaner is possible

B - That it would not undermine the safety of the cleaner if done correctly

 

Although, they WERE all safe to remove. I went through the directories to ensure that what it said was no longer there really wasn't.

In this case, it was right in all 298 cases, or 100% of the time.

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I didn't want to raise the "uh, duh, ccleaner registry cleaner is safe, therefore it cannot be improved" argument.

 

Perhaps a better question would be why CCleaner misses so many files that obviously are not there. I do not mean this in a bad way, because I do love CCleaner. I just know that it can safely be improved.

 

Although someone here or there may have suggested something, I suggested a specific area (files that no longer exist) that I know to be safe to improve on.

 

Thanks!

 

mr don

[login123]

Well, that registry cleaning function already seems to cause issues, even in its present conservative configuration.

 

Tinkering with the registry is sort of like juggling chainsaws...you only get one mistake.

[mr don]

Well, that registry cleaning function already seems to cause issues, even in its present conservative configuration.

 

Tinkering with the registry is sort of like juggling chainsaws...you only get one mistake.

 

Oh, I am well aware of that. The main culprit of CCleaner is the scan for Unused File Extensions. That will break your system faster than anything if you let it remove all the "safe to remove" extensions.

 

But of course, I sent that part to the bug section.

 

Hopefully, they will fix it soon!

 

[Augeas]

Personally I think that the unused extensions is one of the safest issues to fix, as long as you look at what you're doing. I have never seen a 'dangerous' extension offered for removal by CC. I think that removal of the 'Fix All Issues' button would be a safer bet, but would result in many complaints here.

[mr don]

Personally I think that the unused extensions is one of the safest issues to fix, as long as you look at what you're doing. I have never seen a 'dangerous' extension offered for removal by CC. I think that removal of the 'Fix All Issues' button would be a safer bet, but would result in many complaints here.

 

I agree that unused extensions is very safe if you know what you are doing. Very, very safe. Because you know what you are doing.

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But there are 3 problems with this.

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A - On systems with a ton of extensions suggested for removal, it will take nearly forever to check & see what should or shouldn't be removed.

B - All it takes for .MP3 for example, to be suggested as safe to remove, is for you to install something like KM Player. Let it take default for MP3. Delete or uninstall KMP & your .MP3 is definitely needed, no doubt. But CCleaner thinks this is now safe to remove since nothing points to it any more. Certain malware samples can also cause CCleaner to erroneously believe that .EXE is safe to remove.

C - Not every user is as tech savy as we are. Therefore, not everyone "knows what is safe to remove". Which makes it very dangerous for some people.

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I would say that if the check for unused extensions is removed, that would make the Fix All Issues a lot safer to use.

Because I have seen a lot of problems from that 1 key check alone.

 

Oh no, it doesn't happen over night a lot of times, & sometimes the extensions to be removed are chain linked. That is to say, CCleaner removes one extension that another application had a dependency on. Then, because that dependency chain is broken, CCleaner also suggests yet another to remove. In this way (& usually over many consecutive runs), CCleaner can absolutely trash a machine.

 

Sometimes just by removing an extension, CCleaner will then think that other entries related to that, or that used that extension may be safe to remove their settings. A lot of people don't catch these, so their system degrades over time & they don't know why. So all that head scratching, & they have to reinstall Windows. Wonderful.

 

Now, I realize you never had problems, but you have to realize that with you only using MS Office, Nero, CCleaner, Firefox, etc, you may not have problems. Some people use/test many times more, or use a lot of "non standard" software in addition to the times someone tried to run a System Restore only to have an incomplete restore because it was corrupted, or to see those [] entries in the registry. Yes, it can happen!

 

Hence, the problems!

 

Hope this defines the issues so that you can more clearly see what I meant.

 

Don