How to prevent CCleaner from deleting the MS Antimalware scanning history files

[Sno]

I read where i can turn off to prevent CCleaner from deleting the MS Antimalware scanning history files , at 72 i open ccleaner but can't locate Application Tab , I've tried several times an can't locate Applications Tab .. Can someone point me to it so i can stop it deleting MS Antimalware  as MSE Keeps turning yellow after running ccleaner . Regards Snow

[Andavari]

In CCleaner:
1. Click Custom Clean.
2. Look at the upper-left, and click Applications.
3. Scroll down to Utilities and you'll see Windows Defender listed. Disable/untick it.

[nukecad]

You need to be using Custom Clean (not Easy Clean/Health Check which will always delete them).

You can set Custom Clean to be the default view in Options>Settings

 

 

 

[Sno]

Hi  Thanks for the reply , i see windows defender there , an it was un checked , i don't see microsoft security essentials Mentioned at all , so i'm not sure it it's the same as Defender ok . Regards Sno   Ps  However i change it from easy clean to custom clean ok ..

[nukecad]

Microsoft Security Essentials is the older name for Windows Defender, the MSE name is still used for Windows 7 or older.
(With Windows 8 they changed the name and it became 'built in' as an integral part of Windows).

As long as you have Defender unchecked and you always use Custom Clean then it should still be left alone whatever it is called on your machine.

However any time that you use Easy Clean then MSE/Defender will be cleared, and the icon will then show yellow (because the scan logs have been cleared it thinks you have never run a scan).
Whatever you have ticked or unticked in Custom Clean makes no difference to Easy Clean which uses it's own rules regardless.

[Sno]

Hi nukecad   Appreciate your reply , i switched to custom clean as you say with defender unchecked like it was all ready , Thanks Again . Regards Sno..   By the way , i live on Bribie Island , North Of Brisbane , Queensland Au ..

[Andavari]

One would think they wouldn't mess with Windows Defender's logs, and instead leave it for something that can be occasionally or rarely used only in Custom Clean. Perhaps blindly cleaning those logs could be troublesome when disinfecting a system, other than just the annoyance of Defender wanting a scan to be done.

[nukecad]

Defender/MSE does make a lot of logs, at least one every scan.
With Windows 10 Storage Sense will now remove the older ones if you are running low on space, if you have it set to do that, so it 's not that much of a problem.
But Win 8.1 and older don't have Storage Sense so the logs can just build up.

If you have Win 8.1 or older and turn off cleaning of Defender/MSE then you may want to use Windows built in Disk Clean-up occasionally to clear out the Defender/MSE logs.

I suppose Piriform could reprogram CCleaner to leave the latest Defender Scan logs behind, a setting for 'Only Clean Defender logs older than.....' perhaps?

Of course that will take more coding and make the CCleaner programme slightly larger again, the growing size of CCleaner has been a niggle for some.

[Andavari]

Likely worth the the trade-off to know what the system default antivirus software has done, then again if Microsoft just locked the logs it would be a non-issue.

I don't know if cleaning the logs causes the UI to not display what the last auto-scan did or didn't find but I wouldn't at all be happy if it had for instance did an auto-scan found a false positive and deleted a program I use without me knowing anything about it. Then again I've always been against having antivirus and anti-malware logs cleaned by default, and have always believed it should be a user decision to clean those.

[Sno]

Thanks for both your replies , i shifted to MSE because Avast twice stopped my net connection , so i'll run with custom clean , with Defender Unchecked , i've never really gone into ccleaner over the last 10 or so more years , i see you can set it to schedule a scan which i never knew . I've just learnt something after asking about ccleaner . Regards Sno ..