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Daren
16/11/2007, 16:26
Decided to give my hard drive a winter clean ready for installing some games ready for xmas holidays. Anybody know a good proggy that removes all the left over shit from previous installs etc?
tonys
16/11/2007, 16:38
Try this for starters www.ccleaner.com/ it's free and good!

If you want to find a few more things try www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/
jamesp
16/11/2007, 16:43
I use CCleaner and as tonys mentions, it is good and is very good at finding the left over garbage from previous installs.

Its full name is or at least was is crap cleaner.

I have recently migrated here from AOL, when I uninstalled the AOL software, CCleaner found over 300 files that AOL left behind!!
produx
17/11/2007, 01:08
format c: :p
Dae
18/11/2007, 11:54
I'd go with produx. and just backup everything you want and re-install from scratch.
Nice and fresh for all the new installs :)

I keep an updated partition image with Acronis and then restore from it every few months ..
takes about 10mins to get computer back to a freshly installed state :D
smartybones
19/11/2007, 12:59
cleaning things up is far better than a format and fresh install....

the time it takes to do a backup, then reinstall everything, a good clean out takes less time.

a fresh install for me only happens if i cant boot in safe mode....
Gargoyle
19/11/2007, 13:19
cleaning things up is far better than a format and fresh install....

the time it takes to do a backup, then reinstall everything, a good clean out takes less time.

a fresh install for me only happens if i cant boot in safe mode....

Use Acronis True Image or somesuch once you have a clean install, with updates and you main software installed. Then you can have clean and running system back in no time.
Dae
19/11/2007, 14:03
Um, isn't that what I said :D

I keep an updated partition image with Acronis and then restore from it every few months ..
takes about 10mins to get computer back to a freshly installed state

Everything is setup in the image, all profiles, bookmarks, software that I use everyday, all relevant settings etc, all updates (upto a point), all performance tweaking, a nice tidy start menu... Just how I like it :)

The restored partition is even free of dross left by installers/updates and defragged with O&O defrag
before the image is written to DVD-RW.

If a problem arises that can't be tracked down in a reasonable timeframe or I just feel that the pc needs a tidy ..
Just whack in the DVD, reboot .. wait ~10Mins and before you know it the pc is in an 'as new' state.

Takes a while to do the first time .. but removes all the hassle in the long run.
2Beers
19/11/2007, 19:45
if you want rid of all the crap try

C:\deltree *.* /y
:D
Paul_ADSL24
21/11/2007, 20:13
Imaging is a useful tool to have though. I've NOT tried this but there is free imaging software available from http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
WitchHouse
24/11/2007, 11:20
I always use norton ghost for my backups. probably because I have always used it and never tried anything else. as it has been reliable for me and you can use ghost explorer to extract bits when needed. theres plenty of switches you can use to. and you can easily make a bootable recovery cd/dvd to automatically restore your images. But then I have been around it since the dos days :-)............