For what it may be worth,,,

[Ridgerunr]

Don't know if this can be found in the archives or not since the board changed. But perhaps this may help some who need a program to help with cleaning junk off their 'puter and perhaps speed it up a' bit...




In regards to your questions, i think it would be well to give you my schedule for a complete clean-up. I do this at least once a month, and more often if i've done several install/uninstalls or have surfed a lot and piled-up junk in the Temp Internet folder and the cookie folder. I should mention i run the original Win98fe with I.E.6.0

1.Shut down any screensaver that may be running by right clicking desktop,choose "properties" then screensaver tab. Click the settings button on that tab and see that all choices are "always on" and "never". Also,shut down any anti virus program you may have running.

2.Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up close program window. Highlight running programs one at a time and choose "end task".All,that is except explorer and systray. Or,,use a small program called "End It All" http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,697,00.asp
that will do this for you. Don't remember if it puts an icon on the desktop by default or not(been quite awhile since installing it),but you can go to it's folder in Program Files and right click the icon there and choose send shortcut to desktop if it doesn't. If you want to keep a program running for some reason when using it you can double click the program on the list and it will show a padlock meaning "that" program won't be shut down.

3.Next,run Ad Aware from www.lavasoftusa.com to get rid of any bad guys such as doubleclick, among others.

4.Run Reg Cleaner http://www.jv16.org/ with all the stops out(do them all) and, the individual choices are for those who,for whatever reason,only want it to clean a specific area of the registry or specific kind of entries. I then select all to remove(including any with n/a i.e.not applicable extensions. If problems arise, it keeps a back-up by default in the Reg Cleaner folder. You can simply go to the folder in Program Files and select the most recent dated back-up,right click and choose "merge" to put everything back as it was. But,i've never had to do this in over a years use.

5.Next,i run a very good lil' program called HD Valet from http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,...53d9518,00.asp which i've used for two years with excellent results to remove the Temp Internet files and other junk temp files. You can configure it as you want,but i just let it do it's default cleaning which is adequate. It will ask you if you want to view the log after and i say "yes" to see what it has removed. It puts anything that may cause a problem in the recycle bin in case you need to put it back. I've never had to, and just go to the edit menu on the notepad(or wordpad if it's that large) and choose select all and delete. It will ask for confirmation when you close the page,,just say "yes" and exit the program.

6.Now,you want to go to C:\Windows>Applog folder(be sure you have "show all folders" enabled from the view menu). If there is anything in there,go to the edit menu and choose "select all",then on the "file" menu choose "delete". It will ask "are you sure?", say yes and close the folder when these unneeded files are gone.

7.Before you leave the windows folder,open the cookie folder there. Here is where another good program comes in to use. Called "Cookie Muncher" http://www.webattack.com/get/cookiemunch.shtml Once again,put the icon on your desktop as mentioned before. But,for convenience,i open a slot on the task bar(bottom left on desktop) by putting cursor on lil' vertical bar 'til you get the double horizontal arrow and drag it a notch to the right. Then left click,hold down and drag the "cookie" icon(looks like a brown cookie with a bite taken out) to the space you created and let go.Then you can delete the icon up above on the desktop. OK, back to the "cookie folder" in windows. Go to the view menu and select "list" to see who the cookies are from. If there is a cookie from a trusted site(i.e. your ISP),do this: right click the cookie and choose "properties".From the properties menu put a check in "read only",then "apply" and "ok" it. Do this for any other cookies you want to keep. Now,go to the cookie muncher icon on the task bar and single click it. The ones you have "not" set as read only will be removed.Right click the cookie "active" icon on the right of the task bar and click exit to shut it down. Close the cookie folder and windows folder and then...

8.Go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disc Cleanup. Put a check in Temp Internet File,,Recycle Bin and any other folder offered if you want to empty it. Click "ok" and confirm "yes"to dump the junk.:-)

9.Run a thorough ScanDisk from the same menu. If you have more than one partition, at least do the one with Windows on it. Others are optional depending on what you've done on them lately and/or how much time you have. Cause this will take some time,:-)

10.When ScanDisk is through,run this program:Spider,, http://www.fsm.nl/ward Download the version 1.16 in zip format for the latest an' greatest. Now,this was written for Win9x, so, not sure if it will work with Win2000 or NT. Maybe not? What it does,is clean the zillion url's out of the "index.dat"file in Temp. Internet folder.This can be done by deleting the folder in DOS and Windoze will re-build it on boot. But, i don't have the command for that right now. You can go to Virtual DR Win98 forum and ask for help with this,or use the "search" feature to find posts about it. If you "can" use it,after it's installed,once again,put it's icon(looks like a sattelite dish in it's folder) on the desktop as a shortcut. Double click it and click on the button up top with the "spyglass" on it to scan for urls. Scroll the list down if you want. I think you'll be amazed at how much it finds.:-) Then,click the button with the ambulance on it and there will be a check in the "remove url" box by default. If you have cookies selected as before to keep,do "not" put a check in "remove cookies" box or it will remove them all. Spider will ask if you want to re-start to remove urls.Click "yes" and it will re-start your 'puter.

11.When your computer restarts,hold down the "control" key after the "post" window. At the DOS menu choose(5)command prompt only. At the C:\> prompt type scanreg /fix(with the space between g and /.Hit "enter" and it will take off...When it tells you(hopefully:-) )that "windows has fixed your registry",hit "enter".At the prompt,type win and hit enter to return to windows. Running this scanreg program compacts the registry after Reg Cleaner may have removed junk and left empty space as well as possibly doing some repairs...

12.When your back in windows,do as before and close all running programs.Once again,go to Start>programs>Accessories>System Tools and run Defrag.[note]:WinME defrag is much better/faster than the Win9x default,would suggest you get it and replace the default defrag. http://members.cox.net/scotterpops/e...cements9c.html

13.After Defrag finishes,on the system tools menu,choose "System Information". Click the "tools" menu up top.Run System File Checker first. If it finds a missing/corrupt file have your Windows CD handy or if you have already done this and had to replace a file. Hopefully you told it to place a copy of the file in C:\Windows\Help\Helpdesk\sfc if it's the same file as before. You can choose "browse" to point it to the location there. If not,put the disc in when asked, to replace the file.You can also copy the "cab" files from the CD to your hard drive and not have to use the disc each time. Next,,from the same menu,run the "registry checker". If it says "no errors found" answer "yes" to "do you want to back up the registry again". Next,from the same menu,run Dirct X Diagnostics tool. When it boots up,at the bottom click "next page". On each page look at the bottom window for "no problems found"(hopefully:-) ) ignore the last page(more help),it will want you to go online for M$N tech support(nope,,don't think so,unless you really need to)...Next(and"almost"last:-), on the same menu click "repair Internet Explorer".Put a tick in the "repair" box and "ok" and "yes" 'til it says you must restart to complete repair.Once again,boot to a command prompt and do the "scanreg /fix"(just in case the I.E repair tool made some changes).When it says"Windows has fixed your Registry",hit enter,type "win" at the prompt,press "enter"to return to Windows.

I know this sounds like a lot of work and the first couple of times you do it,it "does" take awhile. But the more you do it,the easier it is. I've used this clean-up regimen for about two years now and have had very few problems with my system...Hope it works for you too.
Have fun. :-)