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mr don

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Everything posted by mr don

  1. Not on my system. Disabling prefetch, I can barely tell any diff in performance gains with it enabled. Of course, I do have a fast pc. You are right, not all BHO are junk, which is why there should be an option for each BHO to enable or disable it. But, remember, not all startup entries are junk either, like AVG Antivirus, or Norton, etc etc. Saying this is a reason NOT to use a BHO disabler, is about like saying the same argument applies to other items such as startup as well. Why have a startup disabler? Ya know, once it loads a kadjillion entries, that startup delay program might help your pc feel faster, or that process tamer, etc. Why not load up a kabillion startup items, since they could all be useful, hey?
  2. I wish Recuva could have these features: - Undelete from "raw" drives that happen when you use an external drive, then it locks up & on restarting it, it shows up in raw format, yet your files are still there because you can see them with another data recovery program - Allow recovery of all except: Filter out certain files based on file size, extension, etc - Allow saving of scanning session: Reload a scan session to save lots of time if you were in a hurry & couldn't complete it right at that moment.
  3. 1) BHO are only stored in 1 place in the registry. There is nothing to clean but that one folder, ever, no matter how many BHO are installed, it is always in this 1 place. BHO are just as dangerous as startup entries, & are just as easy to disable. 2) BHO ARE junk to be cleaned, & so far as registry tweaking, if I remember right, startup entries are ALSO stored in the registry. Since you can disable startup entries that may be spread out over multiple locations (IE, all users, run once, etc etc, why would it be too hard to disable BHO that are always & forever only in a single reg location?) 3) Disabling prefetch may slow the system as you say, but on my system, it is barely noticeable, & then there are times if you install/test/use certain apps that bundle malware with their product, it happens that they may insert malware to "prefetch" as well as other files. On removing that malware, it may still leave a reference to that in the prefetch folder for a little while. Why, I think that would be a good thing, to be able to entirely disable prefetch since malware can slow down the system making a call to a program that no longer exists, etc etc. 4) System Restore... Have seen it described as to how you can easily mod an entry for sys restore to change how oft it makes restore points, or disable it altogether. I mentioned sys restore, because on some systems where malware is removed, if the restore points are not also disabled, many people have no qualms restoring BACK to a malware infested date.... In addition, some people NEVER clear sys restore points, & I have seen those take up 3, 4, or even more than that GIGABYTES! That is huge, huge, huge, so eliminating all those restore points (isn't there a simple MS command that can disable or reenable it? I believe there is!) will result in a big size reduction, speed increase, & cause AV scanners to get through in less time. In addition, defrag util will finish faster.
  4. The problem with that is that it would require knowing where the junk files are. Windows has standard file locations that are safe to clean. Other drives have junk in different folders, making it impossible for CCleaner to tell where to go. CCleaner will never support the scan for "junk" files because an attempt to search for .tmp files will not only clear temp files, but also bring up template files that are .tmp based as well! CCleaner is meant to be a safe cleaner, & adding multiple drives would be unsafe!
  5. When you have a 3,200 mhz machine with a gig of ram, you just don't care if it takes longer, since "longer" is still short anyway. In addition, deleting PF files could have a very positive affect. Ever wondered what happens on malware infested machines that have been cleaned of malware, & windows still tries to load non-existent malware entries on startup which slows things down? Think about the bright side of this!
  6. I am unsure if you mean running it on auto from a bat file makes a difference, or if you are referring to manually running ccleaner, as opposed to analyzing & then running ccleaner. I tested the time it took to clean when I hit clean, & ccleaner returned that it took 1.118 seconds to clean the first time. The second time, I clicked analyze & it returned that it took 0.124. Then I hit clean & it took 1.180 seconds. The total for analyze + clean is 1.304, which is 0.186 seconds longer than just clicking clean. I don't know about you, but I rather just click clean & save that 0.186 seconds. I didn't even calculate the number of seconds you wait between clicking analyze & then clicking cleaning, which would have probably boosted it to 2 seconds longer! Every second is important to me! I have every one of the 88,600 seconds in a day maxed out in my schedule!
  7. IMHO, that is a nice utility, if I say so myself. I used earlier, a few programs including one called free upx or something like that, just drag files onto it and select compression. I also tried many other things such as uharc, & it was able under uharc to go even deeper than upx, but with the disadvantage of having to use another program to decompress it back, whereas upx needed no other utility to get it to work. I tried 7zip, winrar, paq, but paq uses a form that requires too much mem to pack & also to unpack. Winrar 3.8 seems to be pretty fast, & rar + solid seems in most cases to be as deep or deeper than 7z. I have tried NSIS ZIP2EXE at times, & it works aight, but I like how you can modify a rar container so much easier. Preciate the new compressor, will be trying it. Really looks so simple. Tried the compressor on CCleaner using all settings. UPX Max took several min the first time, but acheived from 1.4 mb to 510 kb LZMA flew through it & got 510 kb Rar max got 533 kb Strangely, the best compressions seems to have been after I upx'd ccleaner to 510 kb, then I rarred it to max rar compression & it dropped to 492 kb. However, I wasn't using the 66 kb icon I extracted with Batch Icon Extractor, so that would have brought it up to maybe 500ish something kb to turn it into a compressed self extracting executable. Attempting to rar the file first & SFX it, then UPX it seemed not to affect the file size as much as doing the UPX first. What is amazing about UPX is the size diff is permanent. Rar does almost as good of a job, in much less time, & when it is extracted, it returns to the original size. UPX is lossy, rar isn't. Yet it gets very close to the same compression as UPX in far less time without losing quality. Strange, isn't it?
  8. Why would you want to save temp files? Temp files are trash anyway! There is no harm in getting rid of temp files. CCleaner is totally safe. If you are worried about it taking out what is in the temp before it applies settings from an install you did, just be sure only clean files over 48 hours old is checked. Registry files? That is a different story, & the reason you are allowed to tick them is because registry cleaning is dangerous, whereas regular cleaning is not.
  9. There are 4 small utilities I have to use, such as Bart Dart Context Menu editor, + Nirsoft Startup Run etc, because of CCleaner not having these features in it yet. If I were giving suggestions, these are the top 4 I really want in CCleaner: 1 - Browser Helper Object (Show BHO on your system, with options to Delete or Disable... could be added right with startup items) 2 - Context Menu (Disable or delete old entries from context menus) 3 - Prefetch (Disable prefetch entirely, & flush it clean) 4 - System Restore (Control how often restore points are made + delete old entries... sometimes this can free several gigs) If I remember correctly, all BHO are stored in a single place in the registry, & BHO do as much damage as other malware. Saw an article a while back detailing reg keys to stop it from making restore points, & also to change when it took snapshots to say once every 24 hours, or 48, etc. I would really really love to be able to stop using startup run one day. It would be so coolness to be able to do all this with one program... Yes, I do believe in magic, you guys are coding gods... haha!
  10. There is a handy free utility that does this quite well: http://www.bartdart.com/downloads/contextm...itorinstall.exe Also, Nir Sofer's startup run shows browser helper objects & is another small & free util I use because CCleaner doesn't include that option. Services etc prefetch control, I use that as well because CCleaner does not include the option to disable prefetch. Browser helper objects can be very dangerous, & many times no-one knows they are there! Now, let us hope (& pray!) that CCleaner does include a context menu editor + bho disabler! BHO are stored in a single place in the registry, so it shouldn't be too hard to include an option to disable those as well. Perhaps have a split pane for startup items & a separate one right next to it for browser helper objects.
  11. I agree, don't need any more false AV positives. Well, about the "This will waste space because every time you extract the file, it will expand to a temp folder". True to an extent, that it does expand to the temp dir, but here is where it can also come in handy. Open CCleaner & save the settings like you want, get all the directories you want to add to your custom delete folder (I hate those sample pics dir, don't you?). Download winrar + batch icon extractor (the best icon extractor around, along with being simple & free) & install winrar. Drop CCleaner onto batch icon extractor to get the icon, then navigate to the CCleaner + .ini options file in winrar & add it to a rar file using best compression + solid. Open the rar file you just made in winrar, then click the SFX button. Set it to open ccleaner.exe, then to extract to a temp dir, & lastly to use the icon you ripped earlier. Now, why would you do this, you might ask? Simple! A - Using a single file is much easier than using multiple files, especially on a flash drive where you can then drop the exe files all together instead of multiple folders to contain all the files. It makes for a much cleaner & easier to use flash drive experience. B - Using a self extractor, this extracts it to the user's local drive to run, instead of the flash drive, which not only saves wear on your flash drive, but runs it faster as well. C - Prevent the file from accidentally being changed. If you accidentally changed a few options, or clicked where you shouldn't, all you did was change the .ini in the temp dir. Since your file is locked into 1 exe, it will re-load next time you click it, exactly as it was before. D - Rarring the file makes it much easier to transfer to your email, to download to use on another pc you have. Smaller files work better on the web, & Rar compression in the 3.8 series seems to be at least as deep as 7z under most circumstances, if not tighter at times. Sometimes you 1/2 or 1/3 the size of a file or more, but already compressed files like jpg or mp3 may not work so well to try to trim them further. E - There may be other formats like Paq that are insanely tight, but they require insane amounts of time & memory to unpack and to pack them compared to 7z or rar. In addition, a third party program may be used to unpack it so you can click it to run it, whereas if you upx the file, or use winrar sfx, you have no problem. F - The thought behind doing this to a lot of programs, with the exception of files around 30 mb or larger that may take a while to extract, is that you also reduce file fragmentation on a computer, there bye making it a cleaner, leaner running machine with the advantage also of being simpler to search your files if you use an application like locate32 to index & browse lightning fast (find as you type, like in firefox). By having a large part of your files done this way, it also increases how much free space you have left on your flash drive for other things like driver backups with double driver (before you format someone's pc to reinstall windows etc). There is more free space on the local drive as well if you do this to other apps. Have found I was able to rar abiword from a default install of 20 something mb, to taking out uninst.exe, language strings I didn't need etc, rar into an SFX that I could reduce it to 3.87 mb. Having taken foobar & set the settings to use the same dir as foobar is in, then rarring it to an SFX file, I am confident even if I made changes to the toolbar, or accidently "messed up" the color scheme, whatever, that next time I use it, it will be right back to where I had it set last time. I do hope that you can see the many advantages of using compressed self extractors now. Did I mention that if you accidentally lose files, that using data recovery is much easier to undelete a single file than trying to piece together 8, 30, or yes, some apps have over 15,000 files & or folders in their app directory! How would you like to try to undelete 15,000 or more individual files & folders, trying to be sure to get them all back in the right order, place, & name, hoping to recover them all? No thanks! 1 EXE will do it for me, haha! P.S. I have found that SFX archives created with winrar will also typically clean up after themselves as well. As soon as you close out of the executable you are working with, it auto cleans the temp folder it used.
  12. CCleaner is awesome, & winrar can compress it to 1/2 or less of its normal size, in a single SFX file. UPX can compress it still smaller, then put into a rar file. Any chance CCleaner might be UPX packed in the future? Or will this set off too many Anti-Virus apps? Smaller is better, isn't it? Thanks!
  13. I love CCleaner. But when I want to add some custom file paths to CCleaner, I am restricted to using a hard path such as C:\Documents and Settings\Donald\Application Data\Browzar The problem with this, is if I want to run CCleaner portably to remove a certain folder in the application directory, almost everyone uses a different name! So the next time, instead of Donald, it could be Chris, or Pam, etc etc. XP offers relative paths where you could type %appdata%/Browzar and it would automatically go to the correct place reguardless of user name! I wish that CCleaner would support relative paths in the custom path cleaner, as it would make it so much easier! I will provide a list of relative paths that I know so that you can add them if you wish, to CCleaner. Thank you so much for your program & for listening to people like me! %USERPROFILE% %SYSTEMROOT% %HOMEDRIVE% %WINDIR% %Temp% As you can see below, most all of the main folders you will need to access will involved just using the %USERPROFILE% command, coupled with a backslash & the folder you want to go to, so if you just add that one alone, it will make it possible to do almost anything! %USERPROFILE%\Desktop %USERPROFILE%\Application Data %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files %USERPROFILE%\Cookies %USERPROFILE%\Desktop %USERPROFILE%\Favorites %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\History %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings %USERPROFILE%\NetHood %USERPROFILE%\My Documents %USERPROFILE%\PrintHood %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs %USERPROFILE%\SendTo %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup %USERPROFILE%\Templates %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu %SYSTEMROOT%\system32 %HOMEDRIVE% %WINDIR% If you fix this, it will make me very, very happy because I am so tired of having to manually delete the same folders on different computers over and over, such as DVDFAB movie folder, etc. Thanks so much! P.S. Also, sometimes instead of cleaning out a folder, I wish there is a way to delete the whole folder. For example, you want to delete something off the start menu, but if you try to add the start menu folder, CCleaner will try to delete all the shortcuts IN the start menu. Not good at all for certain folders!
  14. This is correct. But he is speaking of cleaning registry keys which could be very dangerous. This would be similar to cleaning out old programs on the pc that are "no longer needed" which could be just as dangerous. I am not suggesting that the registry be cleaned, but merely that the keys are defragged so they are closer together, similar as to how files are done on the pc. This should not be dangerous, as no changes are being made to the content of the registry, but merely rearranging the existing keys for performance. There is a difference between "cleaning" the registry & defragging. I agree, cleaning would be dangerous, but defragging would not if properly done.
  15. Defraggler is great the way it just keeps on improving. I know it defragments files, but I have seen programs that claim to defrag the registry. Is there a chance you can make it defrag the registry in addition to files so that it will really "speed up" the pc? I would love to see a version that "defragmented everything" if you know what I mean. Thanks!
  16. This program appears to be a RIP of CCleaner when you download it, install it, run it, & see what it cleans. It is very similar in many areas, but one area that is unique & I like, is how it groups all the Applications together, Windows trash together, & web browsers together. CCleaner is still my fav in terms of simplicity, but it would be so cool if CCleaner could do something similar. That, & perhaps add a bho cleaner since there is only 1 registry location for these varmits, & more often than not, I find that it is impossible to get rid of what appears to be "spyware" till the BHO objects causing it are removed. Cheers!
  17. I wish CCleaner could group cleaning based on function: Applications - This tab would contain all installed programs that CCleaner cleans Internet - This tab would have all web browsers that CCleaner cleans (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc) Windows - This tab would have all the windows sections that CCleaner cleans (Temp folder, Logged on user Temp, Start Menu History, etc) CCleaner is good, but it just seems so weird to see Internet Explorer under "Windows" & Firefox under "Applications" when both are web browsers, or "Internet" trash to be cleaned... Maybe this is just me, but I thought it would be so nice if it were like this.
  18. Windows has a bad bug, that if your external drive locks up while running, or accessing it, & you are forced to hard set it with the power switch, you can & probably WILL lose your partition info & suddenly your drive shows up blank? Raw format? No drive letter? Unfortunately, as good as Recuva is, it doesn't recover from these drives... I have one now, years of work, how I wish it would recover files from a drive like that! Don't have to rebuild the partition, but maybe it can show "raw" drives? Thanks!
  19. error given is r6002 floating point support not loaded CCleaner 2.10 worked fine.... 2.11 wont work at all? Think I found the problem. Downloaded file from freewarefiles.com, installed, & CCleaner loaded, ran certain things fine, like uninstaller, startup, etc, but didnt clean, but would close out after that error message. just re-downloaded it, but from filehippo. evidently, something was wrong with the file from freewarefiles, or possibly corrupted. now it works. you may delete this post now that i found the problem, thanks!
  20. Recuva is a great recovery program for free, but I noted & tried! the Handy Recovery (they have a free version on their website, but the newer versions recover much more files I believe) & one of the features that I love is that it has the ability to browse to a locked out user account in it's own explorer, & to recover files from locked user accounts. What I mean is, say, Sally Jane has an installation of XP. For some reason, she forgets a password to login to her old account, etc etc, so she re-installs windows.... Horrors, I have to go fix it, but can I please get back those years of IMPORTANT documents, music, whatever that she has saved? Trying to browse to the directory with windows results in the old profile generating a 0kb or access denied or whatever message. Load Handy Recovery? It strips all the encryption fine, & I can recover everything they have in the old user account! I would love if Recuva could do that! In addition, the program "explores" windows much like windows explorer, only it shows not only your regular files, but deleted files, & shows the deleted files IN the same folder they were deleted in (*ie, if you deleted from my documents/my pictures then it would show the deleted file in the folder and you can recover it) Would be nice if recuva offered the ability to browse directories as well... Maybe have a simple & advanced mode that allows the explorer tree or something. Thanks for listening!
  21. I am at a friends house, trying to help them defrag with the latest defraggler, yes, the latest as of Aug 23, 2008. Their machine is XP Pro, & has been running several months.... Whatever the reason, defraggler closes out soon after I click analyze, as it also does right after I click defrag. Surprisingly, grabbing the earliest version off filehippo runs analyze AND defrag just fine. What gives, any suggestion why it crashes? Works fine on my machine, but my friends, it poops! Also noted that Firefox 3, while it DOES have many new & useful features, uhhh, sometimes closes out, while version 2.0.0.16 works great? Any relation? What could cause the problems? Oh, yeah, the firefox bug is on ANOTHER friends pc (not the same friend) but also running a version of XP. P.S. Really nice defraggler, really simple to use, but ah, yeah, I do wish this bug is fixed before I go outta my mind!!!
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