CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)



CCleaner is a freeware PC optimization tool.
It combines a system cleaner that removes unused and temporary files from your system and also a fully featured registry cleaner!
CCleaner allows Windows to run faster, more efficiently and gives you more hard disk space.
The best part is that it's Small, Fast and Free!
Cleans the following Windows components:

* Internet Explorer
- Temporary File Cache
- URL History
- Cookies
- Hidden Index.dat files
- Last download file location


* Firefox
- Temporary File Cache
- URL History
- Cookies
- Download manager


* Recycle Bin

* Clipboard

* Windows Temporary files

* Windows Log files

* Recent Documents (on the Start Menu)

* Run history (on the Start Menu)

* Windows XP Search Assistant history

* Windows XP old Prefetch data

* Windows memory dumps after crashes

* Chkdsk file fragments



Advanced Options allow cleaning of:

* Menu Order cache
* Tray Notifications Cache
* Window Size and Location Cache
* User Assist history
* IIS Log Files
* Custom Folders

Application Cleaning:
As well as cleaning up old files and settings left by standard Windows components, CCleaner also cleans temporary files and recent file lists for many applications. Including:

* Firefox, Opera, Safari, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat Reader, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more...

Registry Cleaning:
CCleaner uses an advanced Registry Cleaner to check for problems and inconsistencies. It can check the following:

* File Extensions
* ActiveX Controls
* ClassIDs
* ProgIDs
* Uninstallers
* Shared DLLs
* Fonts
* Help File references
* Application Paths
* Icons
* Invalid Shortcuts and more...

Safety:
CCleaner was designed from the ground to be safe and secure to use. It has multiple levels of checks in place to ensure that it cannot delete any useful information or documents you may still need. We also certify that it contains no Spyware or Adware.
High Security:
For the super cautious users we also offer secure file erasing. By overwriting the files before deleting them, making it impossible to recover the data.
Multiple Languages:
Thanks to the translators, CCleaner is available in 35 different languages:

English, Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech/Slovak, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Serbian Cyrillic, Serbian Latin, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Firefox Tweak, Speed Boost

"Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!"

Schedule a system shutdown operation

Windows XP allows you to automate the shutdown of your system. This is especially handy if you want to schedule your system to shut down after it backs up files from a personal folder to a shared server folder after hours.

To help you with this type of operation, XP comes with a command-line utility called Shutdown.exe, which you can configure to run at a specified time within the Scheduled Tasks tool. Here's how:

1. Open Control Panel and double-click Scheduled Tasks.
2. Select Add Scheduled Task to launch the Scheduled Task Wizard.
3. Click Next.
4. Click the Browse button to access the Windows\System32 folder.
5. Select Shutdown.exe and click Open.
6. Follow the wizard through the next two screens to give the task a name and choose a schedule.
7. Enter the name and password of your user account and click Next.
8. Select the Open Advanced Properties For This Task When I Click Finish check box, and then click Finish.
9. In the Task tab of Advanced Properties, add the following parameters to the end of the command line in the Run text box:
-s -t 00
Be sure to include a space between the last character in the command name and the first character in the parameter list, such as C:\Windows\System32\Shutdown.exe -s -t 00. In this case, the -s parameter indicates shutting down the local computer and the -t parameter sets a timer that's measured in seconds for the shutdown operation, where zero specifies immediate shutdown.
10. Click OK.
11. Enter the name and password of your user account and click OK.
When the Shutdown utility runs, a small dialog box will display on the screen before the system powers down.

Note: On some older systems, the Shutdown.exe command shuts down Windows but doesn't power down the computer. Instead, it displays the message "It is now safe to turn off your computer."