mike42

Just checked the version 2.22.968 - bug is still there. The |RECURSE option doesn't work together with specific files. Say, I have file "%userprofile%\Eigene Dateien\Temp\songs.txt". I put an entry in winapp2.ini, like "FileKey1=%userprofile%\Eigene Dateien\Temp|songs.txt|RECURSE". --> CCleaner finds "songs.txt". I put an entry in winapp2.ini "FileKey1=%userprofile%\Eigene Dateien|songs.txt|RECURSE". --> CCleaner does NOT find "songs.txt". However "FileKey1=%userprofile%\Eigene Dateien|*.txt|RECURSE". --> CCleaner DOES find "songs.txt". So it seems, |RECURSE works only together with wildcards. But in the Docs-page under "File mask options when choosing files" it says, one can specify files by name + extension.

That was not the OP's question. BTW, restarting the wipe will probably not delete the first file anyway. The file is located in the root of the respective drive and is named as a random sequence of capital letters.

Yes, I'm on XP Pro SP3. I had set the MFT zone size to 2 (which means 25% I think) for test purposes. The situation was the following: I had the $MFT file in the middle of other data. The MFT zone was sitting somewhere at the end of my disk (probably because I changed the MFT zon size in the registry once). Then I started wipe free space and watched it happen in Defraggler on the drive map. As the disk was filled up with the temporary file, the MFT zone was halved repeatedly to make space until it was gone completely (this is done by Windows). Finally, when the wipe-file was deleted by CCleaner again, the complete MFT zone was relocated (by Windows, I guess) to sit right behind my original $MFT file, ie. now covering all my normal data files that are placed behind the $MFT file. So, apparently Windows is doing strange things with the MFT zone when free disk space is running short. But most likely CCleaner is not to blame for that. I don't know, what went wrong in my first try (when the MFT zone was gone completely after wiping).

True, after deletion of the dummy files the (previous) MFT zone is freed too. But apparently it is not reserved for MFT anymore (at least, that's what Defraggler claims). So regular files might be placed where originally the MFT zone was. It writes a huge file until the disk is full. I mentioned Defraggler just, because it displays the MFT zone on its drive map. Afaik, windows WILL decrease the MFT zone as the disk is getting almost full, downto whatever size it takes to fit the new files on the disk. Probably true ....

After running a wipe free space I observed my MFT zone had shrunk to a tiny size (one block displayed in Defraggler). I assume this happened, because CCleaner fills up the free space with one huge file and Windows releases the MFT zone in order to accomodate this file. However, this implies that the MFT will get fragmented as soon as you copy additional files to the disk. Is there no way to write data (eg. zeros) to unallocated clusters without creating a file as such? regards, Mike

Although I cannot entirely figure what you are saying, from your topic I reckon that you are asking about a boot-time defrag feature. I remember being told in the forum that such a thing was planned to be implemented in a future release. I also remember a lot of people being of the opinion that such a feature is not needed. However, I see a lot of files (many of them starting with a $-sign) scattered all over the place after defragmentation. I would love to see those packed up a bit, and I suspect this can be done only before boot. Also, if you risk a glance at other defrag programs, many DO include a boot-time defrag, so I wonder why those do and Defraggler doesn't. (I know, that's not a sufficient argument, but my previous point is.) Could a developer chime in on this? regards, Mike

Currently, a workaround would be as such: Analyze drive Switch to the file list Check all files by checking the box in the header row Locate the file(s) you don't want to move around (by sorting the files according to name, path or filesize) Uncheck those Press "Defrag checked" However, you would have to do this procedure every time :-( A distinct exclude-file feature would certainly make things easier. regards, Mike

Well, yes of course that works. But everytime I create a new project I have to add another line in the winapp2.ini. That is not the intention of an automatic cleaner tool. (see my OP)

Same as in my previous post. This doesn't recurse when searching for obj folders. It finds a "D:\Cplusplus\obj" folder but not a "D:\Cplusplus\MyProject\obj" folder.

You probably mean obj.*. However, that does not find the obj folders within the MyProject folders. It seems, ccleaner doesn't recurse in this case. I would have to manually include a search path for every single project.

I wonder if the following is possible with ccleaner: I've got a folder tree like that: D: |_Cplusplus |_MyProject1 | |_Data | |_obj | |_bin |_MyProject2 |_Data |_obj |_bin I want ccleaner to remove the folders "obj" and "bin" with all their files AND subfolders. This should be done in the winapp2.ini. The "MyProject" folders should not be hard coded, ie. I don't want to put a line for each "MyProject" folder. I want ccleaner to start in the "Cplusplus" folder and search all subfolders (the project folders) for "obj" and "bin" foders. Can anyone tell me what lines I should put in the winapp2.ini? I tried FileKey1=D:\Cplusplus|obj|RECURSE but that doesn't work. Thanks, Mike

I have pointed out this problem earlier, but in the latest build the problem still remains: If I put an entry into winapp2.ini like: "FileKey1=E:\Temp|foo.bar|RECURSE" or "FileKey1=E:\Temp|foo.*|RECURSE" any foo.bar file in a subfolder will not be found and cleaned (say E:\Temp\mystuff\foo.bar). However "FileKey1=E:\Temp|*.bar|RECURSE" does find the file in subfolders. So RECURSE works only, if the filename is a wildcard??? Moreover "FileKey1=E:\Temp|foo.*|RECURSE" will clean any subfolder called "foo" entirely. Is this behavior intended or is it a bug? Thanx for listening, Mike

Of course, pagedefrag can do the job. But it would be nice to have one program that can do everything related to defragmentation. I personally don't like to have several extra programs for every issue.

Apparently, when specifying files to be removed explicitely (without wildcards *.txt or so) the |RECURSE does not work. I have a program that puts a certain file (always named the same) next to every document file I open with the program (ie. all its data files). So they appear in every folder, where I have data files of this program. But I can't identify those files just by extension. Is it on purpose, that |RECURSE doesn't work on explicit files, or has it been forgotten? Mike

There is one confusing thing about |REMOVESELF: If you have an empty folder, or a folder with subfolders but no files anywhere in this subtree to be removed with |REMOVESELF, CCleaner does remove the whole subtree when you run the cleaner (as it should) but in the analysis it does not display anything about the folder(s) to be removed, since there are no files to be removed (only folders). It would be nice to have CCleaner indicate something about folders as well, even if they are empty. Mike

OT: Just out of curiosity, how come the MFT of your 110GB drive is that tiny?

That's good to hear, indeed! This would make Defraggler a fully featured program and a true competitor to other (expensive) defragers. Looking forward to it very much! Mike

Thank you, very nice! That goes without saying. The forum is to help people and not to mislead them after all. Thanx for your comment! Mike

This was exactly my problem. I too install my applications in a different folder than the "Program Files" because there is so much Windows-garbage and other applications-junk which is installed without notice. Same with "My Documents". And all these paths are written to the registry, so in principle it would be possible for CC to get them. The "My Documents" location is in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal and the install folders of applications must be some where in their uninstall infos. It's just that CC simply doesn't do that. So this would be a feater request. Hope some devs agree with me... regards, Mike

Well, the question where My Documents "belongs" is in the eye of the beholder, in fact. I, for instance, don't like my data files being burried somewhere in the depths of the system partition but rather on a different drive. In case of a complete OS crash I can just reinstall Windows and don't have to bother to first rescue my data files from the disk. If I don't want other users to have access to my data, I just remove all the access rights for others from my data disk. As for the original problem (in case, someone else is having this problem): The easiest solution is to define an environment variable in the system panel specifying the location of My Documents and then refer to it in the winapp2.ini. Then, in case one relocates My Documents again, one has to modify the env-variable accordingly.

OK, I have to appologize. Apparently I was running an old version of CCleaner. With the 2.13.720 build the |RECURSE works from within the winapp2.ini. Still, a |RECURSE and a |REMOVESELF option for the Options\Include\Add Folder-function would be nice.

How can you tell? Defraggler doesn't mark unmovable files as such. The hibernation file, metadata, system files are just shown as "normal" files and are simply left out of defragmentation. I also would appreciate to have them marked as "unmovable".

This has been asked before, but I found no hint on what's gonna happen. I think an option to schedule a defrag at boot-time of pagefile, MFT, system files, metadata, ... would be very important, as these are never touched (by defraggler) when windows is up and running. Most other defrag programs offer such an option, btw. Maybe some devs at piriform could chime in at this point? thanx, Mike

Actually, I couldn't get it working anywhere. I have moved my whole "My Documents" to a different partition (or even physical drive), nothing hidden or whatsoever and there I can't recurse anything (only curse ). Only if I use *.* as file pattern, but that coudn't possibly have been the original intention.

%UserProfile% seems to point always to ..\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\ But one might have moved the "My Documents" elsewhere. In this case, do I have to hard-code the location? There is a registry-key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal which specifies the real location of My Documents. This could be read by CCleaner and be adressed by some %MyDocs% variable in the winapp2.ini.