Hi Rolandjs
I used the short cuts option on Glary once, and it deleted half my 3rd party shortcuts that I hadn't used recently. And that was the last time.
Re backups, I have 5 internal HDs and 2 externals ... eSATA & USB. And 2 USB sticks. And have EVERYTHING on all of them.
Plus 3 or 4 archived spinner HDs. And various DVDs.
I said I was OCD!
Hi @Mustang,
My best cleanup tool frankly is a bit of time consuming but most effective for me. Every 6 months after feature update I make clean install of Windows - in that way I still have chance to try and learn new programs, uninstall them, update the ones I keep, tunning the OS with batches from this forum and plus, it doesn't hurt the registry. Meanwhile - Windows cleanup tool. Long time already not using cleanup tools.
Hope this helps.
I believe in prevention. Most of the mess is made by improper program uninstalls,leaving all kinds of files, folders, other entries in the system, (shared) DLLs and temp files as well as registry entries. All of that can be prevented by using a proper uninstaller program like Revo Uninstaller which can clean up after uninstalls and BTW has one of best disk cleanup programs.
Registry itself is not a big problem after Windows XP, anything accessing registry doesn't have to read it sequentially but only a part pertaining to it. That makes cleaning and defragmennting Registry unnecessary and careless program can even ruin it making a really bad problem. In my view, those should not be used, messed up registry and repairing/replacing/restoring Registry can be very unpleasant. Most programs like that are pure "snake oil" do nothing useful and can be poisonous.
One program I like to use for disk cleaning is UnCleaner Download UnCleaner - MajorGeeks which is small, fast and harmless, Even after Disk cleanup, running DISM cleaning lines like:
every few days can additionally delete another several hundred MBs.fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\&fsutil usn deletejournal /d /n c:&Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup&Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth&Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase&pause
There are some really, really bad programs like infamous "System Mechanic" that promise all kinds of speedups but cam make a real mess.
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