If you are using CCleaner, DO NOT USE THE REGISTRY PART. Any registry cleaner will do more harm than good.
Sorry but that's not true! While dinking with the registry
always has the potential to do more harm than good, a blanket statement saying they
will do more harm is not a fair, or true statement. The
judicial use of a good registry cleaner, and the one in CCleaner is one of the best (because it is NOT overly aggressive), can offer some, albeit minimal, benefits.
What is blatantly false is the outlandish claims registry cleaner makers make about the drastic performance gains you will see by using their product. Those are typically highly exaggerated marketing fluff. There are some benefits, but they typically do not result in dramatically improved performance.
And dinking with the registry DOES come with immediate
significant risks, even in experienced hands. And so changes to the registry should never be done without backing up the registry first. Fortunately, CCleaner prompts for that before making changes, and the use of
ERUNT is recommended.
The facts are, most cleaners are safe and millions and millions of users use them with no problems - being lucky has little to do with it (I could not say that 5 years ago!). The problem is, if you are one of the
unlucky ones, the damage could be, and likely will be catastrophic, and irreversible!
So in 123Runner's defense, it is because the risks are significant (dead computer!) and the benefits minimal that Geeks to Go does not recommend the use of registry cleaners, and so his warning to avoid using them was just.
Generally, if you have been using a registry cleaner regularly, it is not likely it will cause damage by running it (the
same cleaner) again. Most of the damage comes when a new cleaner is run the first time on a machine that has gone through many changes. But again, "not likely" is not the same as "never will". The risk is still there - with minimal benefits.
My take on registry cleaners is if you do not frequently install and uninstall major applications (large office or full security suites), and you don't regularly add, swap and remove various hardware devices and drivers, you don't need a registry cleaner.
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I do agree with the use of Partition Master. I have used it several times on several machines without incident. However, dinking with partitions can be risky too - probably one of the worst times for a power outage. So make sure you backup your data first. And I note the free version of Partition Master only works with 32-bit operating systems.
I shall assume that you DO NOT advise me to move any files over to D
I would not recommend simply moving files because that move does not get entered in the registry - so Windows might not find it after the move. However, you can move your My Documents folder over, and all your temporary files over, AND tell Windows where the new location is. For My Documents, look under the Location tab under properties. For temporary files, in IE > Tools > Internet Options > General > Browsing History > Settings, you can select Move folder.
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