VanguardLH

I think that was the problem; however, I did a reinstall of CCleaner and only vaguely recall wondering why this setting was grayed out (unselected items are grayed instead of just showing as unselected). I ended up uninstalling CCleaner and reinstalled it. That got a bit scary because at the end of CCleaner's install (but before it presents the dialog asking if I want to load it), my computer hung solid. Not even the clock in the system tray would advance. The HDD case LED was on solid. After 11 minutes, I hit reset to get going again. What got installed was completely unusable. The ccleaner.exe was the right size in bytes but it didn't show an icon and running it didn't open its window. There was no entry in the Add/Remove Programs applet so I had to do the manual cleanup of remnant files and registry entries. I re-downloaded CCleaner from Piriform and re-ran its installation. The 2nd time it worked without the glitch (but this time I also disabled the anti-virus scanner yet I've not had this kind of problem before with CCleaner's install while the AV was active). This time I manually added the entries to the Include list rather than try to reuse the old ccleaner.ini file. Normally I let CCleaner save its settings in the registry. Due to a discussion with another user in Usenet, and because I wasn't seeing a lot of utilities get listed (he had lots of them whereas I only had 3, and we both had one in common that showed up in his Utilities list but not in mine), I changed to saving Ccleaner's settings in an .ini file to see how his .ini file differed from mine. See http://forum.pirifor...l=&fromsearch=1 where I mention not seeing lots of utilities that other CCleaner users mention seeing under the Cleaner -> Applications -> Utilities section (and utilities that the other users mention seeing in this list). Sometime after changing CCleaner to saving its settings into a .ini file was when CCleaner stopped doing the cleanup of what was added to the Include list. I think the Custom Folders option under Cleaner -> Windows was disabled. It was something I meant to look at but forgot since I decided to go through the uninstall & reinstall procedure. I didn't alter that setting myself. If it is saved in the .ini file (which is circular reasoning since the .ini file wouldn't exist unless that setting was readable from the registry to know to save all the other settings in an .ini file) then maybe me opening the file in Notepad got something accidentally modified there. So I now have CCleaner reinstalled. It's now cleaning up the files and folders in its Include list. I'm leery of changing it to saving its settings in an .ini file since it was after doing that when it stopped cleaning up the entries in its Include list, so I'll stick with it using the registry to save its settings.

Not interested in discussing merits of OTHER software. Would like to know why CCleaner no longer cleans the files/folders added to its Include list.

Yep, the host has been rebooted several times. I prefer the installed version.

Windows XP Pro SP-3 CCleaner 3.17.1689 I noticed today that some folders and files added to CCleaner's Include list are no longer getting cleaned up. I tested by adding folders and running CCleaner but the files remained. The entries in the Include list are: Drive or Folder: C:\Documents and Settings\lee_hodsdon\Application Data\Dropbox\shellext\l\ File Types: All Files Options: Include files only (This is where Dropbox dumps its logfiles that it doesn't clean up) Drive or Folder: C:\Documents and Settings\lee_hodsdon\My Documents\eFax Messenger 4.4\ File Types: All Files Options: Include files, subfolders, and the folder itself (This is where eFax dumps its superfluous files) Drive or Folder: C:\Documents and Settings\lee_hodsdon\My Documents\Fiddler2\ File Types: All Files Options: Inclue files, subfolders, and the folder itself (Fiddler2 leaves stuff here that I don't need) Drive or Folder: C:\TEMP\ File Types: All Files Options: Include files and subfolders (A temporary folder) Drive or Folder: D:\TEMP\ File Types: All Files Options: Include files and subfolders (Another temporary folder) Drive or Folder: C:\ File Types: {*}.cbm Options: Include files only (Dropbox dumps .cbm files here when it has sync problems) None of these are cleaned up by CCleaner anymore. I put some files into D:\TEMP\ and ran CCleaner but the files remained. In the "Cleaning Complete" listing, the details show some Internet Explorer files were deleted, a recent document listing, and zero files in the Recycle Bin. That's it. The "Include" item is no longer listed.

Windows XP Pro SP-3 CCleaner 3.17.1689 Another user of CCleaner noted that MalwareBytes was listed under Cleaner -> Applications -> Utilities. I also have MalwareBytes but it isn't listed in CCleaner. He has lots of utilities listed but I only have 3 utilities listed (7-zip, Avast, and Winpatrol). I can see using SysInternals' Procmon that ccleaner.exe is doing a RegQueryKey under the HKCU\Software and HKLM\Software registry keys and finding all those software entries but very few get listed. Does CCleaner query the Software registry keys to find what software is installed but only list those for which it knows how to clean? That is, I would think CCleaner would only do cleanup on what it knows is proper cleanup. After all, just because there's an entry in the Software registry for an application doesn't mean CCleaner knows how to clean it up or that there is anything to cleanup. However, MalwareBytes can save logfiles under the "%userprofile%\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs" folder. So I'm wondering why some users (with the same software installed) see more entries under the Utilities section in CCleaner than am I.

I was going to send the suggestion via the "Contact Us" web form but that page pukes on submit with the following errors: Server Error in '/' Application. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Runtime Error Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine. Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off". <!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="Off"/> </system.web> </configuration> Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL. <!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/> </system.web> </configuration> Posting here might be the better place but the Contact Us web form page (http://www.piriform.com/contact) needs to get fixed.

Any idea of when cleanup will include DOM and user persistent data (local storage objects) under the Internet Explorer cleanup category? Below is my canned comment to users that don't understand that .txt cookies aren't the only means of saving data on their host from a server. LSO can be used to store information on the user's host and, for example, can also be used to track their web navigation. I have disabled both DOM Storage and UserData Persistence options in IE8 but this could interfere with the operation of some sites; for example, they may want to use local storage for data used by a script on their web page that I visit. When I am no longer at the site, and especially after exiting the web browser, I don't want this data stored on my host. My property is not to be used for their storage. Also, under your Multimedia category, you list Adobe Flash Player but don't mention just what gets cleaned up. Maybe that means deleting the .sol cookie files used for local storage by Flash. However, if you delete the global .sol cookie file then the user loses all their settings for the ActiveX control for Flash (which can include settings to NOT let the control use any local storage to pollute their host). I currently have the Flash Player configured to NOT allow for local storage but if CCleaner deletes the global .sol cookie (%appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\settings.sol) then I lose my settings and am back to the defaults which does allow local storage. - CCleaner should add cleanup for DOM Storage and persistent user data. - CCleaner should not delete the global .sol cookie that hold the user's settings for Flash Player. - docs.piriform.com should get updated to include a Tech Specs section to let users know exactly WHAT cleanup actions are perform by each setting under Windows and Applications tabs. -- DOM Storage and UserData Persistence Cookies only allow a small amount of storage on your host: typically 300 cookies total, 20 cookies per domain, 4096 bytes per cookie. These are the recommended minimums [but are *not* required] by RFC 2109. IE goes its own way with a maximum cookie count of 20 (but got upped to 50) with a total of 4096 bytes maximum consumed by all cookies (upped to 10KB in IE8); see http://blogs.msdn.com/ieinternals/archive/2009/08/20/WinINET-IE-Cookie-Internals-FAQ.aspx. You'll have to do your own research regarding maximums in other web browsers. Some web servers also have their own maximums. Apache will fail with "Size of a request header field exceeds server limit" if the total of all cookies retrieved by the Cookie: request header exceeds 8190 bytes. For info on .txt cookies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http_cookie Another source of cookies are with Flash which has its own .sol files. You can manage how big they can become or if any are saved on your host at all. Visit http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html and go under Global Settings to configure if any local storage is used. For info on .sol cookies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_cookie Cookies are not the only means of saving site data (euphemistically called "user data" for a site) on your host. User persistent data is a separate cache and allows far more storage of site data on your host. Check if you have the following options enabled: Internet Options - Advanced tab Security section Enable DOM Storage - Security tab <pick a security zone, like Internet> Custom Level Miscellaneous section Userdata persistence See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197062(VS.85).aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOM_storage https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DOM:Storage#Description DOM storage is new as of IE8 (http://dev.w3.org/html5/webstorage/). As I recall, the persistent data is stored under the %userprofile%\UserData folder for IE. Other web browsers have their own DOM storage location (e.g., Firefox uses an SQLlite file). I've had these options disabled for so long and probably did cleanup at the time that there is nothing to find on my host under this folder. There may be freeware that not only purges the classic .txt cookies (and possibly the Flash .sol cookies) but also the UserData records.