HDCleaner
Posted on: 01/04/2004 12:00 AM
Over time your computer gets loaded up with un-needed files. Many people schedule their computers for scandisk and defrag, but not always the drive cleanup. Windows built in drive cleanup does not do a very good job of this, so it’s a good idea to look into a third party drive cleaning tool. In this case, we may have a solution, and it’s free.
Install allows you to choose English or Deutsch languages and asks to accept a basic license agreement. You might notice a few misspelled words since English is not the author’s first language, but there is nothing that interferes with using the program. You can then choose what directory to install to as well as whether to install for all users and create desktop shortcuts including a quick launch or desktop icon. You can launch the program immediately after installation.
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You will need to spend some time on the first run setting up what it is you want to delete. This is fairly simple by starting at the top and working your way to the bottom. The program opens with your first option, choosing which hard drive(s) to scan. Once you have done this for the first time, it is saved, so you can run through and clean your drive exactly as you have set it up. The first section is the drive itself, selecting what drives, what known temporary files to delete and which folders to never delete. HDCleaner comes with a list of files that are known to be safe to delete such as 0-byte, backup and log files. You can easily add in any files you want deleted here yourself. For example, I use Paint Shop Pro and the browse feature of Paint Shop Pro leaves behind a file ending in jbf in every folder I browse. I simply added in jbf and it will remove any of these left behind. The search exception option allows you to select folders for the program to ignore. An example of this is your Windowssystem32 folder. Since this folder contains important operating system files that could cause your computer to not start, this folder is one that is not scanned by default. This is handy for making sure folders that contain important data you do not want to tinker with are safe. Once you have checked all these options, you can begin cleaning. You are given a lot of options here including simply listing found files, delete immediately with or without acknowledgement, delete to recycle bin with or without acknowledgement or simply scan for 0-byte files only.
The next section is the clean folders section. This allows you to delete temporary files found in places such as the recycle bin, temp and recent folders. You can also clear out lists that might be getting long such as your run or documents list. Not to miss the boat on security, you can also shred and wipe files so that they are not recoverable. You can then scan for duplicate files and DLL’s by scanning for all or by specifying a file extension to look for. This can use a lot of resources and often system files are in two places, so this is one area I typically avoid.
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The third section is called the “Clean Center”. Just when you thought you had cleaned it all, there is a lot more to cover. First up are the cookies. Cookies are simply small text files that save website variables from the websites you have visited. I should also mention that the program explains things, like cookies, as you go along. Removing your cookies is as simple as selecting all and deleting or manually removing them one at a time. You can also delete your history and cache, with or without cookies and your folder history. The registry cleaner included is not a full-fledged registry cleaner, rather it simply searches for invalid references to files in your registry. Anything you download or delete still leaves a trail and the registry cleaner part of this program cleans out invalid references to these files. Super Cleaner allows you to yet again delete items you may never have considered, yet are not needed. You can delete your wordpad list, paint list, Internet Explorer files, Winzip files and more. You can also delete your swapfile. That is where your computer uses virtual memory on your hard drive. This file is re-created when deleted and many believe it is a good idea to delete it on a regular basis. HDCleaner continues with an autorun manager, uninstaller, file splitter and even an anti-spy section. The anti-spy section is not a complete spyware section, rather it lets you disable some of the better known annoyances like MSM Messenger, automatic updates, a few services and so on.
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HDCleaner has a drive information tool that breaks down your folders and shows you how much space is being used as well as basic drive information such as file system and other properties of your hard drives. It can also make backups of the files you delete and compress them so that you can recover and accidentally deleted files later. Finally, you can pick through a pile of options, including auto updating the program, files to delete on startup or simply schedule regular cleaning.
I will admit, HDCleaner is not the prettiest program out there, but it is one of the best drive cleaners available at any price. HDCleaner has become my favorite program for regular hard drive cleaning on my computer and has earned an editors pick from all of us at MajorGeeks.com.
Score: <img src="http://www.majorgeeks.com/images/review/star.gif"><img src="http://www.majorgeeks.com/images/review/star.gif"><img src="http://www.majorgeeks.com/images/review/star.gif"><img src="http://www.majorgeeks.com/images/review/star.gif"><img src="http://www.majorgeeks.com/images/review/star.gif"> (5/5 Stars)