Franki and I try a lot of software and install and uninstall things regularly on our Windows O/S Machines (Franki: hey! I dual boot OK.). One of the problems is that over time they tend to slow down. Today we happened onto a great system optimization tool and registry cleaner that meets our criteria for great software:

1. it is free (though donations are always welcome, just like they are here to offset our costs;
2. it works and works well
3. it is simple to follow and use.

One tip that we find helpful for programs like this and spybot search and destroy that give you a large list of checkboxes and no select all button is that you can select all check boxes by using the Control + A keyboard shortcut. That will check all of the select boxes and you can then deselect those few you don’t actually want.

Anyway, the program called CCleaner can be downloaded here. It works Windows 95/98/NT4/ME/2000/XP SP1 and SP2/2003 according to the FAQ on the site. We have only used it in XP, 2000 and NT thus far.

We are going to add it to our recommended software list. Let us know how it works for you by posting a comment.

This article was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 1:17 am