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Have your computer clean itself using CCLEANER!

By
Services for Real Estate Pros

One of the simplest ways to keep your computer running effectively is to keep it clean of crap files.  If you haven't ever heard of the program CCLEANER, go and get yourself a copy now. 

GET CCLEANER

Download, install it, and run it.  In it's basic form it's a potent system cleaner.  Keep in mind it's not a virus or spy ware protector or cleaner.  It's primary purpose is to clean system cache, cookies, history, temporary files, and other such important system locations that gather crap files which may slow your PC down.   CCLEANER also functions as a basic registry cleaner and has a nice uninstaller tool as well.

But that's not what this blog is about.  It's about using the power of CCLEANER to automatically clean your computer without you lifting more than a finger...if at all.  Ok..so you downloaded and installed it, right?? If not..go!!

Ok..with it installed, you now have a CCLEANER SHORTCUT icon on the desktop.  Follow me.

1. COPY the original shortcut, leaving the original one for running the program manually.

2. RIGHT CLICK the newly copied shortcut, select PROPERTIES from the menu that appears.  You now see the below:

CCleaner1

3. Click in the TARGET field and place the cursor at the end of the command line, after the quotes.

4. Hit the SPACE BAR and add (as shown below): /AUTORUN   

Ccleaner2

5. Click APPLY and then OK

What you have essentially done by adding /AUTORUN is when you now click that shortcut, CCLEANER runs with all of it's basic cleaning settings.   You need to look quickly in your task bar at the bottom right to catch the program running, as you will see nothing else other than the small red CCLEANER icon appear briefly (depending upon how much crap you have to clean it may stay there for a while).  What's nice is while it's cleaning, you can go about your business without the program window being open.

So how about automatically cleaning your PC???  That's EAZZZZY!

6. Take that modified shortcut and drag it to your STARTUP FOLDER!!!!  (see image below)

CCleanerStartup

Now when you bootup and sign onto your PC, CCLEANER automatically runs and cleans up all of your garbage! It's without a doubt a very nice little way to keep your PC free of crap without lifting a finger.

Another tidbit of information about this AUTORUN feature is that many people have told me that they do not like it when their web history is wiped or their "recently typed URLS" (websites) are cleaned with CCLEANER.  To prevent AUTORUN from doing this, simply open the program manually, uncheck the boxes of those items and then perform the Run Cleaner function.   When you do that it keeps the settings and future AUTORUNs will use those settings.  To get AUTORUN to again clean those features, you must go back and reset those boxes, followed by running the cleaner manually one time.  After you close the program, those settings stick.

Finally, for those who really want to go crazy and don't like leaving their PC online, there is a /SHUTDOWN switch as well.   Create yourself a icon with /AUTORUN /SHUTDOWN and as soon as the autoclean is finished, your PC shuts down.  Get even crazier and add a scheduled task...say 2am!!!  At 2am your PC runs CCLEANER and SHUTS DOWN when done!!!

Hope this helps everyone and get those PCs CCLEANED!!!! 

Christopher Bonta
The Bean Group - Londonderry, NH
Realtor, Integrity and Honesty

Nick, I'll have my wife look at this before I download it, but I think its great and thanks for the info.

If your wondering why I won't do it myself, the answer is simple. If it can possibly be screwed up, I'll be the one it happens to. I've promised my wife to NEVER do anything with the computer without her knowledge.

Oct 22, 2008 08:20 AM
Christopher Bonta
The Bean Group - Londonderry, NH
Realtor, Integrity and Honesty

Nick, I'll have my wife look at this before I download it, but I think its great and thanks for the info.

If your wondering why I won't do it myself, the answer is simple. If it can possibly be screwed up, I'll be the one it happens to. I've promised my wife to NEVER do anything with the computer without her knowledge.

Oct 22, 2008 08:20 AM
Anthony Stokes-Pereira
Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty - Nanuet, NY
Realtor

Hi Nick;

Great Tips, thank you for sharing...................

Oct 22, 2008 01:40 PM
Jackson West
Reveal Estate Home Staging - Vancouver - Vancouver, BC

Hello Nick,

I used to use this on my old laptop and it was pretty amazing how much it would speed things up. I totally forgot about this free little gem so thanks for the reminder.

Oct 23, 2008 06:19 AM
Kathy McGraw
CELLing Realty - White Water, CA
Riverside County CA Real Estate

Nick- I have the CC Cleaner thanks to another member.  I love it, and it does what it's supposed to do.  But I didn't know about this feature and will surely follow your tutorial later this evening...thank you so much for this info.  I just featured it in the E-PRO Group.

Oct 23, 2008 08:04 AM
Nick Ruta
Whitehall, PA

Kathy- You are very welcome and thanks for the featured post!  This tool really has been a sweet addition to my technical weaponry when it comes to cleaning computers.  My record cleanup job on one computer was just over 4GB!!!  I asked them if they ever cleaned out their Internet browser....they looked at me like I had 3 heads.  Heh.

Oct 23, 2008 08:31 AM
Rich Dansereau
Positive Real Estate Professionals - Knoxville, TN

C Cleaner is awesome. I have been using it to sweep my computer for over a year now.

Nov 21, 2008 05:34 AM
Jon Wnoroski
America's 1st Choice RH Realty Co., Inc. - Green, OH
Summit County Realtor

I haven't used CCleaner but will give it a test drive.  I am really annoyed when my computer gets bogged down and am always trying to clean it and keep it moving.  Thanks for your post.

Nov 22, 2008 12:58 AM
Mark Hanna
Weichert Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. - Philadelphia, PA

Thanks for the tip on "automating" CCleaner! I've used the following "free suite" for years: AVG, CCleaner and Spybot Search & Destroy" and, so far, my computers have stayed safe and clean.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Nov 22, 2008 02:20 AM
Christopher Bonta
The Bean Group - Londonderry, NH
Realtor, Integrity and Honesty

Nick, it's been 4 months since I saw this post, but the othe day it occurred to me that my wife had not checked CCleaner out. I therefore took the risk of checking it out myself and installed it. I did it successfully and deleted 69kb worth of crap from my system.

Here is my question to you, did this clean out my entire computer or only the info under my log in ID? My wife and boys have there own icons and I'm not sure whether this cleaned out only my stuff or theres too. Please let me know if you know the answer to this.

Feb 26, 2009 01:22 AM
Nick Ruta
Whitehall, PA

Chris - Actually 69KB is TINY...it must have been more than that unless you are using the autorun feature?  maybe it was 69MB?  I've run this on computers and have seen over 4,000MB (which is 4GB) of crap come off.

As for the question about it cleaning all user profiles, nope, you would have to logon to each user account and run the cleaner for that user profile to be cleaned.   There's no real way that I am aware of CCleaner cleaning an entire scope of user profiles.  I think there's a strange way to do it based upon what I saw online once from a user, but I've seen nothing official at this point.

Feb 27, 2009 02:46 AM
Christopher Bonta
The Bean Group - Londonderry, NH
Realtor, Integrity and Honesty

NIck, as for how much stuff came off my side, I would routinely go into the "options" section of my tools and select "settings" then hit "delete all" and it would delete things from my cookies,temp folders etc.. but this CCleaners is great if I set it up correctly and it will do it on its own now.

Thanks for the info and nice picture of you and your wife on Facebook.

Feb 27, 2009 04:06 AM