ccleaner

Hi.

I have had CCleaner on my computers for years but have never actually used it because I it intimidates me. For instance, I just did "analyze" and a few of the things that show to be deleted are:

Applications: Office 2010
Windows Explorer: Recent Documents (Right clicked on this for details and it seems to be all of my documents???)
Multimedia: Adobe Flash Player
Multimedia: Microsoft Silverlight
Multimedia: Steam
Multimedia: Windows Media Center
Multimedia: Windows Media Player

If I hit "run cleaner" is it actually going to delete those programs or does it just clean something up within those programs?

Thanks.

It is a cleaner - not uninstaller. That means you can clear the list of 'recent documents', for example, not delete those documents themselves!

Thank you Iurii. This is why I have never actually used it though. It specifically says "delete". If it doesn't mean delete, it shouldn't say delete.

Also, with regard to the registry cleaner. I did a "scan for issues" and have 790 issues. Looking at them, I don't know if it is safe to "fix all issues" or not. I know I can do the backup before running it but I am still not comfortable to do this. Here is one example:

The Application referenced at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Telltale Games\Sam and Max - The Devil's Playhouse\SamMax304.exe could not be located. These references are often left behind after uninstalling software.

Solution: Delete the registry value.

What is this going to do? I am actually currently playing this game which is installed from a disc. If the registry value is deleted, will I be able to continue playing this game?

I use CCleaner almost every week including scanning the registry for issues. It has never deleted anything I needed even from games I was playing. I know some people who run it every day before they shut their computer down.

Thank you Draclvr. I guess I should just do it. I'll never feel comfortable with it unless I try it and see what happens I guess.

If there's any doubt, wait until finishing the game before deleting the registry value.

It's possible that not running ccleaner as an Administrator prevents ccleaner from "seeing" the files. Try right-clicking the ccleaner file and choosing "Run As Administrator" and see if it comes up with different results.

Thank you Jenny100. I went ahead and did it (prior to reading your post) and the game does still play.

I am hoping that cleaning the registry helps me with a start up problem I am having: System_Service_Exception. My computer has been freezing up and requiring hard shut downs on start up. Twice I have had this blue screen but the first time it turned black before I could read what it said. Today I read it. I Googled the problem and one solution said to start with cleaning the registry. I am also going to run a full Malwarebytes scan maybe tonight or tomorrow.

The last time I had a problem during start up it seemed to have to do with an update I had been refusing. When I did the update, the problem stopped. There are no updates waiting to be approved now. In fact, this problem started a couple of days ago AFTER having 30 or so automatic Windows updates and also a Norton patch.

One site I checked said "System_Service_Exception" could be caused by bad graphics drivers. Do you know whether any of the Windows updates you installed had an update for your graphics driver (or some other driver)?

If you suspect one of the updates, you could try using System Restore to go back to before you did the updates and see if you still have the problem.

Or you could look at your list of updates and Google the name of the recent updates (KB number) and System_Service_Exception and see if any of them are known to cause issues. Of course that would be time-consuming since there were 30 of them.

The one day after doing the hard shut down my system did a (can't remember the name of it) to try to "fix" it and asked if I wanted to do a restore which I did and the updates were gone then, however, they came right back when I shut down that night. I did look at them and most of them were office updates. There wasn't anything about drivers.

I'll see what happens tomorrow when I turn the computer on. If I still have a problem I'll try something else.

Thank you Jenny.

Unfortunately, this didn't help. First attempt to start up crashed; second attempt made it to desktop then froze. Third time worked.

This could be a hardware problem. But have you run that full Malwarebytes scan yet?

No, not yet but I do have Malwarebytes Pro and don't really think that's the problem. Would kind of rather play my game today while I have the time....

But be SURE to run that scan ASAP after you're done gaming.

If the shutdowns are happening at startup, I'd suspect the power supply.

If shutdowns are happening at other times too, check the processor and graphics card temperatures.
If you don't already have software that displays temperatures, try ***Speccy***.
Speccy is made by the same people that use ccleaner.

Someone at ***Sevenforums*** had a System_Service_Exception problem that turned out to be due to his processor overheating. But you can see the process they went through narrowing down what the hardware problem was.

I suspect this too...

So far I am only having the problem at start up. Once in a while I have received notice of "high disk usage" I think is what it has said. And also a couple of times there was some de-bugging thing on my desktop when I closed out of the internet before shutting down my computer.

I ran Speccy and these are the results:

Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.80GHz 51 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
9.00GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Dell Inc. 05DN3X (CPU 1) 46 °C
Graphics
DELL ST2320L (1920x1080@60Hz)
ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series (ATI) 46 °C
Storage
1397GB Seagate ST31500341AS (SATA) 49 °C
1397GB Seagate ST31500341AS (SATA) 43 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GH50N
HL-DT-ST DVDRWBD CH20N
Audio
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio

I don't know what is "normal". The computer has been on for approximately 8 hours now and I was playing a game for about 4 hours of that time if that has any bearing on anything.

When I first purchased the computer I had to have the power supply replaced before I could even use it. They (Dell) replaced it with a refurbished one in my brand new computer which did kind of tick me off.

Malwarebytes found nothing.

That all looks totally normal... and good that Malwarebytes found nothing.

If I would have to hazard a guess, I'd say your issues might be power supply related. My step-son had the same issues with Dell. After they replaced the brand new power supply with a refurb twice over a period of a couple of years and then it went down again, he said the heck with it and we built a new one from scratch. The power supply was proprietary to Dell, so you couldn't just replace it with what you wanted.

Thank you. A power supply doesn't seem as problematic as something else anyway. As I stated earlier in the thread, when I had this same problem some time back it seemed to be fixed by a program update. Was hoping for a similar easy fix. I'll have to see what happens.

Maybe, as Jenny suggested, I should Google all those updates for look-see. I so wish I had a "computer guy" (or gal)!

Don't we all, oldbroad! Or one who makes house calls...

Today, first attempt at start up made it to my desktop, then froze. Second attempt froze on the screen asking me if I wanted to do a start up fix or start up normally. Third attempt went into the start up fix and I let it do system restore again which results in "start up can't be fixed automatically" or something like that, click finish to shut down. Fourth time it came up and had to fix my Norton. The automatic updates from a few days ago are gone again. For the heck of it I'd like them NOT to download/install again tonight when I shut down. So, can somebody please refresh my memory where to go to turn automatic updates off.

Thank you.

Seem to have lost my Win Patrol during this fiasco. Don't know what else yet.

Just about the last thing you need to do is turn off automatic updates. But you can selectively choose which ones to install by going to your Control Panel and then to System and Security and Windows Updates. You could try installing them one at a time to see if there is a remote chance one of them is causing your problems. But I don't think Windows updates are your problem.

I think that's what I meant. It shows 31 important updates but only 29 of those are checked (not by me) and there are 6 optional. If I just uncheck them all for tonight, they will still be there tomorrow right?

Have you done a chkdsk on your hard drive?

Not yet Jenny. Earlier somewhere I wrote that I didn't have any updates waiting for approval but after going to where Draclvr directed me I found 6 optional updates. I did end up letting the automatics install again and also included one of the optional ones which had to do with monitor drivers. I'll see what happens tonight. If/when I do chkdsk I either have to leave it on overnight or wait until the weekend.

Thank you!

Ooh, I am such a liar. That optional update did not have to do with monitor drivers. It is a display software update and it did not install which is fine because I think it is really old. Or is it about drivers? When I click on more info it says drivers. It says released March 2011, published December 2012. Should I do this?

I was not watching over my computer the whole time it started up tonight and think I may have missed something but am not sure. I saw it at 15% configuring (from the auto updates) and a few minutes later it was on the screen that gives the option to do start up repair or start normally. Not sure how it got there, if it restarted itself or what. I hit start normally and it came up fine. I do see one of the update installations failed though.

You might have found your culprit.

None of them had failed previously, just today.

Please see my edit above regarding that optional update.

If you want to update video drivers, do it through the website for the video card, not through Windows Update.

For example

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

or

http://support.amd.com/en-us

So a display software update has to do with video drivers? This is my monitor isn't it? This is what the update says:

Dell Inc. - Display - Dell ST2320L_Analog

Download size: 23 KB

You may need to restart your computer for this update to take effect.

Update type: Optional

Dell Inc. Display software update released in March, 2011

More information:
http://sysdev.microsoft.com/support/default.aspx

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub

I very much appreciate your help Jenny100 and Draclvr!

Actually it does seem to be a monitor update if this is your monitor...
http://www.dell.com/al/p/dell-st2320l/pd

And the 23KB size is certainly much too small for a video card.

So it's probably harmless.

Yes, that's for your monitor... I would ignore it especially since it was that optional update you selected.

I would do a restart and see what happens.

Thank you both. I did not end up doing that update. I checked it last night thinking it would do it along with the auto updates but it didn't. Don't want to restart now in case I have a problem. Need to sleep soon and would rather go to bed on a peaceful note.

If you want the monitor driver, it's probably better to get it from the website of your monitor, not Windows update.

I think this is the driver, which seems to be newer than the one at Windows Update. But make sure I have the model right.
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=JDPVJ

I think that's it Jenny. Thank you.

Today it froze up after reaching my desk top but when I restarted it was fine. I'll have to spend more time with it this weekend.

I saw an interesting suggestion here -- that what looks like a freeze could be your mouse acting up.
http://www.powersolution.com/my-computer-keeps-freezing/

Thanks again Jenny for this link. Another thing to look at this weekend as well as cleaning the computer up a bit I think. Last time when I had this problem I did change out the mouse but it didn't change anything. Also need to look into that failed update installation. Still shows failed in my update history. There's an error code that I looked up and there is a solution showing that I will look into.

Good luck.