System Cleaners

[james.daly91]

Does anyone have a good system cleaner they can recommend? I was using AVG's registry cleaner and stuff but they appear to have screwed up with my licenses and I can't be bothered trying to get through their call centres to get a new one!

[smargh]

I've been running the same install of Windows 7 since December 2009 and have never needed to use a "system cleaner."

There is a significant amount of trust you would need to place in any application which claims to tidy up an OS, with a corresponding amount risk, considering the damage that could be done. The risk is not worth it. You just need to be sensible about what apps you install, keep the OS and apps up-to-date, ensure you don't click on dodgy web links etc.

Just buy a reputable SSD - the investment in time & money, and the level of risk, would be significantly lower, and the speed boost would be significant.

[jim]

Yes. Assuming you're using Vista or 7 (assume it's also in 8):

Start -> Disk Cleanup

If you're using XP, I can't remember where to find it. I think if you right click the C drive and go to properties it's in there somewhere.

[cptwhite_uk]

ccleaner (direct download page) is all you need.

While I'd echo the comments above about being vigilant of what you install, keeping things up to date etc. CCleaner has some nice features for cleaning up the registry (which often become bloated over time regardless), and tools for securely erasing data from both mechanical and solid state drives correctly (for each type of device). It's also a small program, easy to use, auto-updates, and generally great). It can also clean browser cache, passwords, history from multiple browsers all in one action which might be useful if selling a PC.

[james.daly91]

Brilliant, thanks for the help

[Taurolyon]

+1 on CCleaner.

[Kovoet]

Ccleaner has never let me down and brilliant for uninstalling stuff

[Ttaskmaster]

I've used CCleaner too - Great stuff!!

[Dooms]

Format and reinstall. I do it at least every 6 months.

All my documents are in dropbox, my media is on server and game saves are in steam cloud. Yesterday it took 7 minutes to format and install Windows 8.1 from USB (to get to the please select colour and sign into M$ account) - 3 minutes for Ninite.com to install every app I actually use - 3 minutes to install graphics drivers (only driver I bother manually updating) then it was just a case to downloading the games I want to play on steam/origin (not long on a 120mb connection).

So less than 15min from booting to back to 100% working computer and I get rid of all the crap I no longer use

[herulach]

Format and reinstall. I do it at least every 6 months.

All my documents are in dropbox, my media is on server and game saves are in steam cloud. Yesterday it took 7 minutes to format and install Windows 8.1 from USB (to get to the please select colour and sign into M$ account) - 3 minutes for Ninite.com to install every app I actually use - 3 minutes to install graphics drivers (only driver I bother manually updating) then it was just a case to downloading the games I want to play on steam/origin (not long on a 120mb connection).

So less than 15min from booting to back to 100% working computer and I get rid of all the crap I no longer use

Ninite looks very interesting. can you add extra stuff to it? I had a faff with wpkg a while ago, but only half assed. kind of tempted to play around with it again.

[Dooms]

Ninite looks very interesting. can you add extra stuff to it? I had a faff with wpkg a while ago, but only half assed. kind of tempted to play around with it again.

Not sure if you can in the pro version but the free/standard one is just the apps on the website. Its great as it installs without any addons bars or other crap, needs no interaction and I have a copy of the exe on my parents machine which i run every few months when I'm home to update all their apps

Chrome, 7Zip, CCCP, Classic Start, Paint .NET, Notepad++, SumatraPDF, qBittorrent, Steam, Evernote... that's basically everything I use on my computer. Just need to add Origin (ew but necessary) and VMview for work.

[shaithis]

Add/Remove programs
Disk Cleanup

If you require more then that, reinstall. I've seen so many issues after people have used "cleaners" that I just do not trust them.

[deejayburnout]

Format and reinstall. I do it at least every 6 months.

All my documents are in dropbox, my media is on server and game saves are in steam cloud. Yesterday it took 7 minutes to format and install Windows 8.1 from USB (to get to the please select colour and sign into M$ account) - 3 minutes for Ninite.com to install every app I actually use - 3 minutes to install graphics drivers (only driver I bother manually updating) then it was just a case to downloading the games I want to play on steam/origin (not long on a 120mb connection).

So less than 15min from booting to back to 100% working computer and I get rid of all the crap I no longer use

That's impressive. I agree with the clean install. Might have to check out ninite.com

[MeridiusBeta]

CCleaner is about as far as I'd go too. Hardly any of these programs are of any use whatsoever, and they mainly just give the placebo effect.

OS's just get bogged down eventually, and as Dooms says, it's best to just wipe and reinstall. I tend to leave it longer than I should, but I perhaps do it around every 9 months or so.

[james.daly91]

I recognise CCleaner - think I used it on my laptop before it went balls up. Reinstalling the OS is a lot of phaff, but it did make a difference when I did it last time. Interestingly though, even after reinstalling on my parents main computer, it was still as slow (perhaps a tiny bit faster) as it was pre-install, which it really shouldn't be with its spec (4gb RAM - although only 32-bit OS). That was partly why I wanted to see if a system cleaner could have any effect on it

[MrNeil]

Been using Advance Systemcare and CCleaner for years with no problems at all