Ache

Some more reports on this matter: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=158813.msg1144567#msg1144567

Thank you for adding it. I know for sure a lot of people can and will get decent help if they go there. Most people listed are also helping on Bleeping computer and/or on one of the other mentioned places.

I suggest you get/run the hd drive diagnostic util from the drive manufacturer and see what it tells you.

Why are you running FF on a server? Why are you running CCleaner on a server?

52 million isn't really much if you consider how many people there are on this planet. USA : 318,892,103 inhabitants (July 2014 est.) And they say 52 million photo's, not photo's of 52 million different people which is a huge different. Just google for a "famous" person and look at how many photo's there are already of him/her.

Don't know where you read it or heard it, but defragging a drive will not screw your system up, unless during the process something really bad happens. Like a power failure, a lightning strike, a flood that sets your system under water or something like that. Ofcourse your system was corrupted, but you did not needed that guy to tell you. You already knew that, hence the bsod's and not booting. Defragging is a old and kinda obsolete thing nowadays. In the old days of fat systems and when systems where much slower than nowadays, it sure could made a lot of difference when it came to speed. You really would have noticed a difference between a fragmented system and a defragmented one. Since the introduction of NTFS systems there is almost no need anymore for defragging. The reasons for it are that files are stored in a entirely different way on drives as that fat did. Also the systems have become much faster and that causes it any slowdowns caused by fragmentation not to be noticed anymore by the users. Let's say you travel place A to B and the distance is 1000 km (or if you wish 1000 miles) You do this with a car and it takes you 10 hours. (this is the fragmented version of the car) Now you defrag the car and it weights 1 kg less. You take the same journey but since the car is lighter, it will take you 9 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Is it faster? Yes it is. But will you notice the difference if you don't look at the stopwatch to see how long it took? No, you won't. You could compare a drive with a closet with clothing. Two exact the same closets with exact the same clothing in them. In the fragmented closet everything is there but it is not ordered. Finding the cloths you need will take some time. In the other closet (the non fragmented one), everything is nicely ordered. It is easier and faster to find what you want.

Opera Internet Cache: When analyzing it say (example) 1014 files found. After cleaning it reports (about) only half of the files is removed. Same is with the size. Manually checking shows CCleaner is reporting the files (size) found roughly double of what really is there. CCleaner does not scan/cleanup the cached icons in Opera which are in: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\icons\ This is on XP SP3. Could be another folder on another OS.

A real good place to get help on removing malware/checking a system for malware : http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=53253.0

Best way to prevent him from deleting "important" things, is to teach him about the OS he is using and about computers. What really can/will be helpful, is if he starts using a limited account instead of a account with admin rights for daily use.

Andavari, No, Windows does not remove them by itself. ISO-later, I have tried the same thing with the same results. Kinda weird that CCleaner did remove the files without a problem until 5(?) versions ago. Augeas, Indeed, it is supposed to load applications faster. I've tested it with a batch file. - register current time - load the application - register time as soon as the application was loaded and returned a "0" code when is was loaded With or without prefetch file... No difference. Anyway, it should not be up to CCleaner to decide if the prefetch files will be removed or not.

I've tried several things, but nothing makes it work. I disable the "Old Prefetch Data" went to tools > include > added the prefetch folder > files and subfolders... And guess what? It still doesn't remove the prefetch files. I checked the attributes on the folder and none is set.

Tried that with no luck. It does say (example) 106Mb to be removed. It removes 79Mb. Clicking analyze again shows 0Mb to be removed.

There is a easy solution: Replace the user and try again

I have added the prefetch folder to be cleaned. Since the last 5(?) updates CCleaner is not removing the files in it anymore although it use to do so with a older version. I removed the "rule" and set it again, changed remove folder+files to files only etc, but it refuses to delete them. Windows XP, SP3. Anyone knows a (possible) solution for this?

You can't remove IE from the system since it is part of the system. It is used not only for showing internet pages, but (parts of it) also are used to show help (.chm/.hlp) files. If your keyboard drivers are using the temp folder, the drivers where not programmed really smart. It is however logical that CCleaner has problems with the files there. They may be (and like are) in use by the system so they can't just be removed. I suggest you boot in safe mode and then run CCleaner.