CCleaner Tutorial

CCleaner is a handy program from Piriform that performs the

following maintenance operations on your PC:

• File clean up
• Registry clean up
• Registry back up
• Program uninstaller
• Edit Start up entries.

Contents
CCleaner Tutorial...................................................................................................1
Installation..........................................................................................................1
Configuring CCleaner..........................................................................................2
Secure file deletion..........................................................................................3
Cookies............................................................................................................4
Include/exclude...............................................................................................5
Advanced........................................................................................................5
Using CCleaner...................................................................................................6
File clean up....................................................................................................6
Registry editor.................................................................................................8
Tools/Uninstaller............................................................................................10
Tools/Startup.................................................................................................12
Tools/System Restore....................................................................................14
Tools/System Restore

Installation
CCleaner is a great program, but there is one issue that you’ll
find with it and many other free programs. They have to make
their money somehow, and they do that by installing other
companies’ software as part of the installation. One of the
installation windows has all boxes ticked and they probably
shouldn’t be.

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Download CCleaner here. Run the download, choose your
language and follow the prompts until you encounter this
window:

You’ll notice all the boxes are ticked. The bottom one is a tool
bar for your web browser that will only slow it down. The less
toolbars you have in Internet Explorer or Firefox the better.

I un-tick all boxes except Add Start Menu Shortcuts.

From there the installation is straight forward. Once installed,

it’s time to configure the program.

Configuring CCleaner
The default settings for the cleaner are pretty good for most
users, but there are some things you may want to change. On
the left-hand menu select Options

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I tend to leave these un-ticked but you may wish to select
Secure file deletion.

Normal file deletion (recommended unless you have a tech

savvy stalker) works the same as manually deleting files from
Windows; it merely removes the entry from Windows file tables,
like deleting it from a table of contents. It’s like removing your
street number from your house. The house, and everything in
it, is still there but Windows cant see it.

Normal file deletions is all you need to stop people accidently

finding data you have deleted. This is ample for people with
nothing to hide, who have their PC physically secured.

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Secure file deletion

Secure file deletion is useful for users with lots of sensitive

data, especially users with laptops, which are more prone to
theft. All “empty” space is overwritten a pre-defined number of
times, with each overwrite rendering data harder to recover.

• One pass overwriting means the disk is overwritten once

with random data. A casual user cannot retrieve your data
but someone with the right data recovery program can.
• NSA (7 passes) is virtually impossible for a normal user to
retrieve data. For a substantial fee there are companies
that can access the data. You need to consider whether
your data is important enough for anyone to spend
considerable money stealing it.
• Gutmann (35 passes) renders your data irretrievable by
anyone other than powerful law enforcement agencies,
but I think it’s overkill for a home computer.

One consideration here is disk life. Logic would say that each
overwrite contributes to wear and tear on you HDD.

The other consideration is time. Thirty-five overwrites would

really drag on.

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Cookies

Cookies are left on your computer when you visit many

websites. They help identify your machine to websites,
sometimes to enhance your surfing by automating navigation,
but sometimes for less-savoury reasons.

This window allows you to choose which cookies CCleaner

deletes. If, like me, you only use CCleaner monthly, you may as
well use the default setting to delete all cookies. The ones you
want will soon return.

If you are using the cleaner daily you may want to keep cookies
from your favourite sites. Just drag them from the cookies to
delete column on the left into the cookies to keep column on
the right.

Include/exclude
Most users will have no reason to modify these settings, but the
method is fairly straight forward if you must. Simply click add
folder or add file and navigate to the folder or file you wish to
include or exclude. I don’t recommend this, as data loss is
possible if you include the wrong folder.

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Advanced

The only box I check in the advanced screen is Show prompt to

backup registry issues. I’ve never seen CCleaner corrupt a
Windows Registry but it doesn’t hurt to back up before changes
just in case.

If you use CCleaner to protect your privacy you should ensure

the tick box for Only delete files in Windows Temp folders older
than 24 hours is un-ticked. Otherwise your history from the
previous day will remain after you run CCleaner.

Using CCleaner

File clean up
CCleaner’s file cleaner removes temporary files that clog your
system. Note that it only removes files from the user account
you are running. All other users must run CCleaner from their
user account.

The Cleaner window has a series of tick boxes that determine

what CCleaner will clean. Most users need only accept the
default selection.

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I suggest you simply select Run Cleaner at the right-hand lower
corner of the window.

If you’re concerned about privacy you can tick Wipe Free Space
(at the bottom of the left-hand list), but this will severely slow
down the operation.

After you click Run Cleaner you will see the following screen:

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This tells you how many MB of files have been removed.
Cleaning is complete.

Registry editor
The Windows Registry is a database containing the
configurations settings for your operating system and
programs. It can be manually modified by running the REGEDIT
utility built into Windows, but this is too dangerous for the
average user. Change the wrong setting and your system may
never boot again.

Over time the Registry becomes cluttered with obsolete entries

from general use, especially from installing and uninstalling
programs. CCleaner is a safe and effective way to remove
these entries.

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You should only need to run the Registry cleaner once, after
which you would only run it again after installing or uninstalling
large or hard-to-remove programs.

Select Registry from the left-hand menu.

Select Scan for Issues

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Select Fix selected issues

You’ll be asked if you want to back up the registry, select YES.

Choose a location to save the back up and click SAVE.

Choose Fix All Selected Issues then OK in the confirmation box

that follows, then close the box shown above.
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You should see the following screen:

That’s it, your Registry is tidy and running to full potential.

Tools/Uninstaller
You should always first try to uninstall programs with the
Windows ADD REMOVE PROGRAMS utility (located in the
Control Panel in XP, and My Computer in Vista and Windows7).
If that is unsuccessful use the unwanted program’s own
uninstaller (often located by hovering the mouse pointer over
the program’s icon in the START menu).

There may, however, be programs or utilities that won’t

uninstall this way for various reasons. There may be vital files
or folders missing or corrupt, or it could be one of those pesky
trial programs that hang around to annoy you. If the traditional
method fails it is worth giving CCleaner’s uninstaller a go.

I don’t think it is as good as Windows’ own ADD REMOVE

PROGRAMS in general, but I have seen it remove programs that
Windows couldn’t. It is my third resort for removing programs,
but here’s how to use it.

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In the far-left menu select Tools then Uninstall in the adjacent
menu. A list of installed programs appears in the right-hand
column.

Select the program you want to uninstall and click Run

Uninstaller.

Agree to the confirmation box.

The following screens will vary depending on which program

you are uninstalling, but you should soon see a screen like this:

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That program is now removed from your system. You may be
asked to restart your computer.

When you’ve finished you can run the CCleaner File Cleaner
and Registry Cleaner (optional) to remove any left over entries.

Tools/Startup
The last thing you want on your PC is all your programs starting
when you power it up. Depending on the programs it can slow
the boot-time immensely, and affect overall system
performance. Read here for more information about which
programs you might want starting when Windows does.

CCleaner’s Startup editor is a safe and effective way to choose

which programs start automatically, and which ones don’t.
Keep in mind you can still start programs you disable just by
selecting them from the All Programs list in the Start menu as
you need them.

To disable a program from starting with Windows select Tools

and click on Startup. You’ll see a list of programs that do, and
can, start when Windows does.

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Below you can see a complete list of the programs starting on
my system.

You’ll notice I have most of them disabled. Let’s disable another

one.

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For this example I’m disabling a Java update scheduler from
running at startup. Select the program you want to disable and
click on Disable.

Notice SunJavaUpdateSched now has a No in the Enabled

column. Next time you boot your computer that program will
not start until you ask it to.

Tools/System Restore
The last utility in the Tools menu is System Restore, although
the name is a little misleading because it does not restore your
system. Rather, it allows you to delete Restore Points that
Windows has made in the past. Windows periodically creates
Restore Points, which can restore your system to a good
working state if you indivertibly make changes that damage
your system.

These Restore Points can take up a lot of HDD space, but they
are there for a reason. Unless you are low on free space on
your HDD I recommend leaving them alone.

If you must delete them select Tools and System Restore.

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The top (most recent) Restore Point is faded out to avoid
complete disaster but you can remove any of the older points
(preferably the oldest) by simply selecting them and clicking on
Remove.

Select OK

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Notice there are now only two Restore Points. Just remember
you now have one less option for recovering your system if you
harm it. If the two remaining Restore Points are corrupt you are
in trouble.

That’s it for now. I’ll re-publish this tutorial in much more detail
when time permits.

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