High Tech Household

As time goes on, your computer can become cluttered, causing it to slow down.  I ran into this problem with my laptop this weekend, and figured it was  time for a good system cleanup.  Doing a cleanup of Windows helps to remove old files, clean up the system registry (which is essentially a database of all your windows and application settings), and remove applications already in use.  People who have utilities such as Norton SystemWorks have this functionality, but there are plenty of free alternatives on the web.

As I was searching for a quick utility to help clean up my laptop, I stumbled across CCLeaner.  CCleaner is a great utility that allows a user to clean up the junk on their computer, and fix registry problems.  It also allows users to manage the applications that launch at windows start-up (leading to those long log in times where one can go down the street to buy a sandwich, come back, and just be getting to the desktop).

CCleaner System Cleaner

The utility is easy to use.  To clean your system, you simply launch the application and click “Run Cleaner”.  An “Analyze” option allows you to review all of the temporary files on on your computer before you run the cleaner.  CCleaner also allows you to to select and deselect what types of files you want to clean.  For example, if you like to keep your “recent documents”, you can uncheck this option and prevent CCleaner from deleting them.

CCleaner Registery Integrity Utility

CCleaner also gives you the ability to troubleshoot and clean up the registry.  By clicking “Scan for Issues”, a list of all problems with your system registry will be displayed.  You can then correct the problems one-by-one, or in batch.  CCleaner also gives you the option to back up your registry before making any changes, so that if one of the changes messes up your system, you have the ability to recover.

CCleaner Tools

The CCLeaner tools section contains some additional helpful utilities.  In this section, you can manage your applications and remove unwanted programs without having to deal with Microsoft’s slow and cumbersome “Add/Remove Programs” Control Panel item.  You can also disable and enable the programs that launch at system start up, allowing you to troubleshoot what exactly it is that allows you to go buy a sandwich while you are booting your PC.  Finally, Windows keeps data about system restore points, which allow you to roll back changes in the event of  a problem.  CCleaner allows you to remove those that you no longer need.  For example, when I examined it this weekend, I had about 50 restore points dating back over two months.  At this point, some of the older restore points are fairly useless, so removing them freed up a little bit of space.

CCleaner is a great free utility for helping to keep your system clean and organized.  It is by no means the single tool for system maintenance (it doesn’t handle drive checks, defragmenting, etc.), but it is simple to use, effective, and accomplishes what it sets out to do.  Keeping your computer free of clutter is one way to prevent performance degredation and maximize your disk space.  CCleaner handles that task admirably.