I'm running XP (SP3) on a Dell that's starting to get a couple of years under its belt. I give it a monthly 'Guttman' clean with CCleaner with absolutely everything ticked including the 'Advanced' settings, I'm running Comodo Firewall Pro, Avast, Ad-Aware (lavasoft) and I keep Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware running also. A monthly defrag happens too.....if I remember. After all that, my question is: Is giving the system a regular clean with CCleaner in the way I've described enough to prevent cluttering of the system with redundant crap? I read a lot about backing your system up and then wiping it and starting fresh, but is it really necessary? It is time consuming and I'm curious as to what the benefits really are. I'm not trying to start an IT junket here so please keep it simple. Cheers!
.....I understand backing up the system is crucial, I'm mainly interested in the cleaning side of things.
I run this one too. http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html. I have used it for a year with no problems. Catches some junk CC doesn't. And it's free too!
install spywareblaster.com (free, highly rated). Rather than removing spyware, it does an excellent job of PREVENTING it from getting in, on the first place.
Sounds like you are doing an excellent job with your PCâs maintenance. Be sure that your main drive has 25% or more open space too. If Windows begins operating with less than 10% free disk space you will experience performance/CPU process loss. CCleaner does free up the temporary downloaded internet files and surprising each day on the internet you can accumulate 100-200 megabytes of these files. In a monthâs time you may actually accumulate several gigabytes of junk which can cut into your hard driveâs free space. Deleting and reinstalling everything will not make your PC run any faster. Only additional memory or a faster processor will.