Good cleaning programs for windows 8/8.1

i was wondering is there any cleaning programs for windows 8/8.1. That will not mess the system up and registry

 

I would recommend in using Ccleaner which is a good cleaning program.

 

CCleaner is indeed very good. Just don't use the registry cleaner part of it.

 

Care to expand on that a bit? As far as registry cleaners go, CCleaner's is one of the safest there is.

 

In regards to registry cleaning, have to agree CCleaner has been safe for me.
But....read this article and the links within.
https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=126481

Cheers..

 

I have always used the registry cleaner in CCleaner and had no problems

 

Can't disagree with that. I've used it myself, though very infrequently. The thing is, you can't just let it, or any other such cleaner, delete what it "thinks" it needs to. If somebody can't look at each item and figure out what it's for and why it's (supposedly) not needed, they shouldn't be using any registry cleaner whatsoever. Even at that, I personally don't think they do anything worthwhile, especially for the newer operating systems.

 

If you must use one of these registry cleaners, at least CCleaner allows the user the opportunity to review every registry key/value queued for deletion and to uncheck those that seem blatantly dangerous (that's assuming that the user is familiar with which keys do what). CCleaner also affords the user the opportunity for backing up everything that's deleted so that you can restore those deleted values should you have problems after the cleaning is done. I would suggest you do this every time, along with creating a restore point prior to running the reg cleaner, especially if it's one of those ridiculously dangerous "One Click" computer cleanup "tools". You must realize that deleting a necessary registry key can be as catastrophic as deleting the critical file that it references. Most of the stuff that these cleaners delete is just left over junk from prior installations and uninstalls which do nothing to speed up or slow down your system anyway.

One has to understand that an unwanted registry deletion isn't necessarily going to show it's ill effects right away. It may manifest days or weeks later when you go to run a program only to find that it no longer functions properly, or a shell extension that's disappeared from the context menu, or a file extension that is no longer associated with any program.

Because so much of the registry is made up of CLSID codes, binary data, and other cryptic Windows code, it's virtually impossible to make informed decisions about deleting these types of keys. I've tried a few of these programs just to see which keys they want to delete (only a minority even allow you to review the keys queued for deletion) and I can state without reservation that they all delete keys and values that do not need to be deleted and some that are going to damage the system. And that's from review of just the subset of keys that I understand. They always list keys about which I have no knowledge, such as the key types stated above.

 

Very good post I think rustysavage. That would all seem to me in line with my experiences.

Moving beyond keys and other registry related items that CCleaner registry cleaner removes, does anyone have a good breakdown of removing Windows Temp files? I have always been tempted to remove these, but, looking over the list of them after running CCleaner analyzer, I opted not to remove them because (I'm not sure of this) I am under the impression that they will eventually be removed, anyway...and why risk it on something I don't know anything about. Is it true that they are removed automatically eventually by Windows? I could still understand removing them for sure if it takes Windows a long time to get rid of them and all, but I would like to know more about what Windows temp files are. Any info appreciated.

Another one is Windows log files. Beyond that as I look down the list of options in my version of CCleaner (it's old...3.08 but I know what to expect from it so far), I see so many that I wouldn't think to remove, especially in the System and Advanced areas.

Just so that it gets mentioned, I think maybe the best feature of CCleaner is the ability to remove user selected files, folders, and or files and folders. For this feature, I think a very good strategy could be developed. I have used the feature to get rid of things like logs that grow too large, memory.dmp, system state databases from Toolwiz Timefreeze, and other files that seem to tend to grow very large. Anyone have a strategy for using this feature of CCleaner or any secret areas you remove with the feature?

Thanks for any info

 

Unfortunately, I've been procrastinating on researching that same issue, mostly because of the sheer number of temp files/folders and LOG files contained in the Win 7 OS, especially compared to XP which I have on my other machine. I just now did a quick search on my Win 7 system and found that it contains 46 temp folders and 857 LOG files. True, they don't all belong to the OS but still.... it makes my head hurt. Consequently, I too just keep any temp folder or LOG file that I'm not 100% sure about.

 

Really struck a note for me rustysavage. I don't even have time to go over them in Windows XP. I remember on a previous machine doing a search using "Everything" for just log files. There were so many. Thing is as a typical home user, if something goes wrong, it's just going to be a matter of fix it myself or pay someone to, and it won't likely have anything to do with the logs, but I just can't bring myself to try to get into determining what should stay and or be deleted.

Just looked on this system and found 791 log files. Thing is...does System Restrore use the ones associated with System Volume Info? Then there are the Windows updates logs and some associated with programs that probably get used. I know, for example, that I want to keep the logs for backups, but there are others too like Process Lasso log that actually displays on the interface...

:heli:banghead:eek

 

I'm sure that an IT person fixing your system would want to look at some of these log files, but again, which ones? I'm not a zealot for cleaning my system of every single unnecessary file and I have ample disk space so I just keep them in case, as you mentioned, you need to have someone from Geek Squad or the like come out and fix your messed up system.

I've always been curious as to what exactly the system backs up to the System Volume Information directory but as far as I know there is no way to view a file list from a specific System Restore Point. So many questions, so little time :confused