Serious cleaning of hard drive with Windows 10 (64 bit)?

Hi all,

I have tried free and paid software to actually clean up my hard drive but then I go looking around in file explorer and see tons of entries such as windows temp directories chock full of files that add up pretty quickly.

I presume most of the clean up software is on the safe side, so that they stay away from anything with MS or Windows involved. Yet I am constantly Googling things I find and get the runaround. Best to keep it or of no use you can delete it. It's a perplexing situation and novices to experts surely want lots of space on their main hard drives?

Is there actually any database or an actual free or paid software that actually cleans the whole drive including things like definitive answers on should I keep it or not?

It would be super to either have a database look up built or a software that actually tells the darn truth? LOL

Whether or not what I see is deletable sure as heck would give me space back.

I think the Windows community all over the internet are confusing a lot of people with opposite answers. What we need is authoritative answers that are actually correct.

I just don't get it. Somehow, somewhere somebody should be able to put an end to thousands and thousands of free and paid software that actually CLEANS the hard drive, safely and frees up maximum space.

I must say I am not aware of any database or software that actually does what I said above.

Also, I see software installed in Program Files or Program Files (x86) and I decide nah, don't want it and uninstall it. Only to be going into Users/chuck and finding it listed and having tons of files in the directory. What's up with that? I have tried many uninstallers and wonder, is it a no no to delete the stuff relating to something you uninstalled in the Users/Chuck directory?

I am so confused any more. I have been in computers since 1984 but unfortunately a sickness in 2011 wiped my brain clean. I lost all memories including my expertise in computers. I get a little trickle now and then but I am talking like a novice. LOL I am trying to relearn but it's very hard. I was off any computer from 2004 until 2010 due to the wife leaving AFTER I had a heart attack which leads to today's completely blocked artery, I ended up in a homeless shelter. I am not well and can only sit at the computer for just a bit. I have bad diabetes and sitting causes my legs to swell really bad. So I have to kinda watch how long I am sitting here.

Can some of the experts weigh in on this for me? And the others that probably ask the same kinds of questions?

Thank You!

Chuck

Third-party cleaners can cause problems if used indiscriminately. The safest way to clean out unnecessary files is Windows own Disk Clean-up. type DISK CLEAN-UP in the Search/Cortana box next to Start to find it.

For maximum cleaning, click its 'Clean up system files' button. This will produce a list of locations that are safe to clean. Click on each item, a description of what it's for appears below the list. If you think you'll not need it, tick its box to clean it. Look at each item in the list and choose the ones to clean, then click OK to delete all the selected items.

If you clean up system files you will also see a 'More Options' tab in Disk Clean-up. On this tab you can remove all but the latest restore point. Restore points can occupy a lot of disk space.

I like option 2 here:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...a.html#option2

I put the command line into a bat file and save it on my desktop, then right click on it and "Run As Administrator" when I want to run it:
%SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:65535

I always just check every block.

I use treesizefree to see which directories are chewing up disk space.

I use patch cleaner to reduce the size of the windows/installer directory.

CCleaner is useful and reliable but I use on the registry with care. It also has a useful feature to selectively delete restore points. I saw another post on the forum recently about Wisecleaner and I now use that too but just in basic mode (select first tab). Treesize mentioned above is useful. I also use Autoruns to check/disable third party programs/services/tasks run at boot.