Drive Cleaner

Drive Cleaner seeks out and deletes redundant files on your computer drive, freeing up valuable space and streamlining your system. The default settings are safe and will only find items that can be safely deleted. If you are not sure about setting the options just leave the standard settings as they are. This will produce good cleanup performance with maximum protection for your system. In the picture below you can see the main dialog of the Drive Cleaner function module. To understand how to use this module move on the Procedure topic of this function module.

Empty the Recycle Bin before deleting anything. When Drive Cleaner deletes items it moves them to the Recycle Bin so that you can recover them if necessary. If the Recycle Bin is empty before you start it's much easier to find the items you want to recover.

Procedure

1: Start the Program:

Click on the Drive Cleaner entry on the main dialog of the Ashampoo WinOptimizer 6.

Important: Read the information on the start dialog of the Drive Cleaner module carefully.

2: Select the task you would like to perform:

Start new scan: To search for unnecessary files check search for unnecessary files radio button.

Configure settings: To configure the options of the Drive Cleaner mark the radio button next to the task. See the Drive Cleaner Options topic for more information on how to configure the options for this module.

3: Perform the selected task:

Perform the selected task by pressing the "Start a new Scan" button.

After the scan

After the scan is finished the Results screen is displayed automatically, with a brief list of all the items found.

Even though the standard settings are very safe it's a good idea (and interesting!) to have a quick look at the detailed results using the Show Details button the first few times you use the program. You can view the different types of redundant items found and select them for deletion, or deselect items you don't want to delete. (See Details for more information.) If you haven't emptied the Recycle Bin, do so now! When Drive Cleaner deletes items it moves them to the Recycle Bin so that you can recover them if necessary. If the Recycle Bin is empty before you start it's much easier to find the items you want to recover. Restart Windows® and test all your important applications to make sure that everything is working okay. If you experience any problems make a note of the error messages (programs normally inform you which items they need are missing) and restore them from the Recycle Bin.

Note: After deletion the items selected for deletion will still be visible in the Details list. To clear the list you must exit and restart the module.

Check the results the first time you use the program:

• Drive Cleaner identifies many redundant items on the basis of their file extensions (e.g. *.tmp, *.bak etc). Application programs should not use these extensions for files containing important information, but unfortunately some of them do. We have excluded the known problem candidates in the Exceptions screen, but if you or a less well-known program uses these extensions for important files they will be identified as redundant by Drive Cleaner. This applies in particular for old Windows® 3.1 and DOS programs written before the standards became established.
• Because of this you should always click on the Show Details button to advance to the in the Results screen before deleting anything the first couple of times you use the program. If you find important files there you can add them to the exceptions by right-clicking and selecting either Add Highlighted File(s) to Exceptions to exclude the individual files from future scans or Add Highlighted Folder(s) to Exceptions to exclude the entire folders containing the files.

Settings in the Options screen

Specific folders:

Include contents of Windows® Temp folder for current user:

Security Rating: GENERALLY SAFE

By definition, the contents of the Windows® Temp folder are there to be deleted after they have been used. Deleting them can only cause problems if the programs using the files in them are still running (this is one of the reasons why you should never run other programs while using Ashampoo WinOptimizer 6). This option only finds the items in the Windows® Temp folder of the current user and using it should be completely safe.

Include contents of Windows® Temp folder for all users:

Security Rating: GENERALLY SAFE / CAUTION ON SERVERS

The same applies here as for the Windows® Temp folder for the current user. If there are any files here belonging to applications used by other users the applications are already closed, otherwise the other users would still be using the computer! This doesn't apply on servers however, where other users may still be using the files. DON'T activate this option if your computer is being used as a server!

Associations:

Scan for orphaned shortcuts (*.LNK):

Security Rating: SAFE

For a number of reasons, Windows® and Windows® applications often "forget" to delete shortcuts when they are no longer needed. These orphaned shortcuts serve no useful purpose and can always be deleted because the objects they refer to no longer exist -- even if you tried to use them you would just get an error message.

Scan for orphaned DOS program shortcuts (*.PIF):

Security Rating: GENERALLY SAFE

The same applies to orphaned DOS program shortcuts as to Windows® shortcuts, but with one exception: Although they are just as useless as Windows® shortcuts because they point to objects that don't exist you may still want to keep them. This is because the .PIF shortcut files for DOS programs contain all the settings you need for running the program they refer to. If the .PIF file is the only place where you have the settings you need for a DOS program you still want to run you definitely want to keep it! If you have any DOS programs like this you should check your results in Details before deleting anything!

Write protected:

Ignore write-protected files and folders in use (recommended):

Security Rating: POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS

Files are not normally write-protected, and if they are there's probably a good reason for it. For example, programs often write-protect .tmp (temporary), .bak (backup) and other files that they need to access.