Using CCleaner (Part 3) - Tools - Technology Bits by Sean

Welcome to the third installment of the Using CCleaner series of blog posts instructing you how to use CCleaner (and what the many features actually do). This post will cover the Tools portion of CCleaner which includes Program Uninstalls, Managing Startup Programs, Browser Plugins, and a brief explanation of the the extra tools in CCleaner.

As always, if you are unaware of what CCleaner is, I highly recommend you check it out. CCleaner is a free system cleaning and optimization tool provided by Piriform. I swear by it and many others find it to be a great tool for Windows power users. You can grab a copy of CCleaner from: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download.

CCleaner - Tools Tab

The tools tab of CCleaner contains a bunch of very useful tools that I rely on when assisting customers. I’ll be doing my best to cover what each set of tools does and how to utilize them effectively. Please note the tools section of CCleaner can potentially cause negative effects to your computer if the wrong things are changed. If you’re ever unsure, be sure to ask someone or do research before making a change.

Uninstall Tool

This tool is rather self-explanatory. You are shown all programs installed onto your Windows system, and you can uninstall or repair those installed programs. Windows already has this feature in the Control Panel under Programs and Features, but it is convenient to have this located inside CCleaner so that you don’t need to open another window.

Selecting a program in this menu will allow you to uninstall it or perform a repair operation. Not all programs support the repair option. You can also search installed software if your list is rather long.

Startup Tool

The startup tool allows you to see what programs are set to run on your computer’s startup. CCleaner gives you the ability to disable or enable these programs as well as deleting the startup entry altogether.

Selecting a startup entry will allow you to enable or disable the program from running on startup. Be aware, disabling specific programs can cause strange computer behavior. Always be careful when disabling startup programs. Luckily, most weird behavior can be reverted by re-enabling a startup entry if your computer reacts strangely.

There is also a tab for Scheduled Tasks which behave similar to startup items except these may run more than just on your computer’s startup. Tasks have the same set of options as startup items in that you can disable and enable them. The same warning goes for scheduled tasks in that weird behavior may follow when disabling an item in which case you should go back in and enable it.

The context menu tab controls what shows up when you Right-click an icon in Windows. I would suggest leaving this screen alone unless you are sure you know what you are doing.

Browser Plugins Tool

This tab will list any enabled plugins or extensions for all popular browsers installed on your system. By default, Internet Explorer will always be listed. If you have Google Chrome or Firefox installed, you will see tabs for these browsers as well.

As with the previous section, you can disable, enable, and delete browser plugins and extensions. This will allow you to potentially disable annoying toolbars or extensions that are causing pop-ups in your browser.

Disk Analyzer Tool

The disk analyzer will inspect your hard drive and show you what files are taking up the most space based on file type. This is useful if you are unsure where all your precious disk space has gone or if you would like to find the biggest files to offload. Shown below is a sample screenshot from my Windows VM after running the Disk Analyzer tool.

Duplicate Finder Tool

The duplicate finder tool will help you determine what duplicate files you have floating around on your computer. This can help save hard drive space by eliminating unnecessary duplicates. The default settings for running a search are likely just fine for most. Shown below is a sample screenshot from my Windows VM after running the Duplicate Finder tool.

System Restore Tool

The system restore tool lists all system restores Windows has automatically created for your system. System restores are created automatically by Windows after updates or a new program is installed. You can manually remove all but the most recent system restore to save valuable hard drive space. Unless you really need to free up hard drive space, I would leave this as a last resort. Shown below is a sample screenshot from my Windows VM of the System Restore tool.

Drive Wiper Tool

The drive wiper tool securely erases the contents of a hard drive (or the free space of a hard drive). I only use this tool for external hard drives that I am preparing for e-waste or resale. You can select the external drive and wipe the contents securely such that the next user cannot restore your data. Be very careful when you select the drive letter to wipe as all files from the select drive will be securely deleted. In general, secure deletion is something you should always do when recycling your computer or a hard drive of any type. Keep in mind, this is not foolproof, but it does make it much harder for the next owner of the computer/hard drive to reliably recover your data.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read through my third installment of Using CCleaner. If you have any questions or comments about the topics covered, feel free to post below.