only partial contents displayed and cleaned

[decibelle]

I am finding that in practically every folder that I analyze or clean with CCleaner, only some of the full contents of the folder is displayed or cleaned, and sometimes is not displayed or cleaned at all. For example, if I analyze (System) Temporary Files, it shows one file, when there are dozens of the same type same origin, same date, if I actually go to the folder in Windows Explorer. It shows nothing in prefetch data, but I know from going there that is not the case. I have to go in and delete manually. It varies from day to day; sometimes some of the folders are completely shown. In the advanced settings, I have it set to delete files older than 24 hours, but that does not explain all of the older files being left in the folder.

 

I have the same problem with cookies in Firefox. It seems to remove cookies that are on the remove list, but does not add new ones to the list that are clearly listed by Firefox. It does keep the ones I want, but I have to go through manually to remove the others.

 

The same goes for any folder that I try to add under the include option. Only part of the contents is shown or removed.

 

The only folders that don't have this problem are application related, like Quicktime, etc..

 

I would like to be able to rely on CCleaner. What can be done to fix this problem?

 

Thanks,

Ellen (XP Home 2002 SP3) using latest version of CCleaner and previous version

[GoneToPlaid]

Hi Ellen,

 

I will try to answer all of your questions!

 

"if I analyze (System) Temporary Files, it shows one file, when there are dozens of the same type same origin, same date" -- by default, CCleaner only removes temporary files which are older than 24 hours. Or you can reboot and then run CCleaner again to remove these files. If those files mysteriously show up again after running CCleaner and you have no other apps or web browsers running, then you might want to download and install and run the free versionsMalwarebytes Anti-Malware as a second check for whatever antivirus program you are using and in order to be sure that no malware is lurking on your computer which your antivirus program missed. Another possibility is that your present XP SP3 installation is actually an upgrade from an older Windows 98 installation? If this is the case, then some folders and temp files from the older Win98 installation will exist which CCleaner deliberately does not clean since they are related to the Win98 state before you upgraded your computer to Windows XP. Simply ignore these folders since they take up very little space on your hard drive. You could manually clean them, but I don't recommend it since you could make a mistake and since deleting some of the files will require booting in Safe Mode and going to a command prompt to delete some of the files. Again, it is best to simply ignore these files.

 

"It shows nothing in prefetch data, but I know from going there that is not the case." -- CCleaner only searches for old or stale prefetch data, and doesn't remove any of the current and "good" prefetch data. This is why, even though CCleaner reports "0 bytes to be removed" for prefetch data, your windows prefetch folder still contains numerous prefetch files. Why? Those files in the Prefetch folder are both current and "good", and they accellerate the startup of Windows as well as accellerating the startup of your frequently used programs. Microsoft states that users should never delete the contents of the prefetch folder. While no actual harm is done by deleting everything in the prefetch folder, after doing so it can take up to three reboots of your computer plus running your most used programs before both Windows bootup and program launching speed returns to normal. Before then, bootup and program launching will be noticeably slower.

 

"I have the same problem with cookies in Firefox. It seems to remove cookies that are on the remove list, but does not add new ones to the list that are clearly listed by Firefox. It does keep the ones I want, but I have to go through manually to remove the others." -- I am a little confused, but your best option is to manually select in CCleaner the additional Firefox cookies which you want to keep. If you are referring to any cookies associated with online banking, you do NOT want those cookies to ever be saved! Why? Cross-site cookie vulnerabilities in all web browsers could allow a malicious web page to steal your bank login information from cookies which are associated with banking web sites. Thus it is Firefox itself which wipes out those banking cookies when Firefox is closed -- assuming that the banking web site instructs Firefox to do so. If any banking web site is saving cookies after Firefox (or any other web browser has been closed), then that banking web site has security issues and the bank is not following current "best security practices".

 

"The same goes for any folder that I try to add under the include option. Only part of the contents is shown or removed." -- CCleaner isn't meant to be a "wipe all" for specific folders. Hehe. Imagine specifying "C:\" or "C:\Windows" as folders to be cleaned. Wouldn't that be a really quick way to render a user's computer inoperative! CCleaner is primarily a registry cleaning tool along with enhancements for cleaning up the junk and unnecessary files created by numerous programs. If you want to periodically delete the contents of specific folders, then there are several other freeware utilities which are tailored for this specific purpose.

 

Best regards,

 

--GTP

[Nergal]

Best way to see what's cleaned is to run ccleaner from the CMD line (dos prompt/terminal) with /export as a switch

 

open the run box

type "c:\program files\ccleaner\ccleaner.exe" /export

(quotes are important, change the location if your ccleaner is located elsewhere)

you can read all of ccleaner's rules via the files created

 

you need to provide us with more info, what do you want deleted and what don't you want deleted?

 

the 24 hour rule is only for windows temporary files, files found in %temp%