Hello,
I'm very new to this programme.
Can someone tell me what hotfix uninstallers are?
I appear to have nearly 500Mbytes of these files.
That is one large lump of space.
Can I really let CCleaner delete them????
TIA
nuncschess

These are Windows Updates. If you remove these files you will not have the ability to uninstall a particular update.
http://www.ccleanerbeginnersguide.com/scr/cleanerinfo.htm

Thank you.
I may be being a bit thick here but why would I wish to uninstall an update?
nuncschess

Well, usually/normally there's no need to. But sometimes there might be, if the installed update causes some problems. It's good to keep those uninstaller files, let say a week or two, just in case. And if there seem to be no problems, then you can remove them.

Thanks. It's good to know someone knows what they are doing. These computer things are a complete mystery to me.

After you remove the Hotfix Uninstallers you'll have to run CCleaner's registry cleaner, maybe several times to remove what will then be invalid uninstall data in the Windows registry.

Does CCleaner remove all the left over Hotfix Uninstallers entries? I use RegSeeker for that. You have to be careful with RegSeeker though. I mean generally.

Nope, CCleaner doesn't remove all the leftovers, sure it will remove the uninstall link what shows in Add/Remove Programs however there's even more stuff to remove. Back when I used to use RegSeeker it would find to my best knowledge all of the remaining leftovers in the registry that were actually invalid and needed to be removed.

Do you mean those Hotfix uninstaller entries or generally?

I'm talking about what CCleaner's registry doesn't find leftover in the registry, and what I mentioned was only pertaining to the removed hotfix uninstallers.

Hi uncschess,
Welcome
Removing Hot Fix Uninstallers is an Advanced cleaning option.Many users including experienced users will only use this option rarely.
In your case if you need the space then I would only use it once then immediately turn it back off or you will delete you "new" update uninstallers after each "Patch Tuesday".You can wait awhile until these build back to a large amount and then do it again.
If you are not experienced enough I would leave the Registry alone until you have time to learn how to get yourself out of trouble when things go badly.
I advise most users to not use any Advanced cleaning options.In most cases they do things that new users do not like happening to their PC.Their use is for Advanced "special" reasons and do not improve the performance of your PC.
Good luck,
davey

http://www.ccleanerbeginnersguide.com/ CCleaner Beginner's Guide.com

yes CCleaner doesn't search for all leftovers, I personally tend to use JV16 Power tools last freeware edition - does take care of the rest ! as also RegScrubXP occassionally does what was missed out on. - should you intend to remove the hotfix uninstallers you might want to try the above in addition to CCleaner.

I use these 4 registry cleaners to keep my registry reasonably clean:

jv16 Power Tools 1.4.1 (very safe)
jv16 PowerTools 2005 (very safe)
RegSeeker (not so safe, but effective)
CCleaner (very safe (to my knowledge))

I have some other registry cleaners too, but they seem to be rather useless after those mentioned cleaners.

No mather what registry cleaners you use, you are never able to remove all the unneeded, leftover registry entries. Most cleaners are able to find the most criticals though. Only way to remove all the unneeded entries, is to trace and remove them manually from the registry. Anyway, there's so many entries and keys in the registry, so few unneeded doesn't really make a difference. Best way to keep your registry clean from all the unneeded crap, is to clean install Windows every now and them.

Do you have a URL to download the first three cleaners?

Thanks - Marlise

jv16 Power Tools 1.4.1:
http://www.macecraft.com/news/11
jv16 PowerTools 2005 <== that's 3 years out of date:
http://www.macecraft.com
RegSeeker:
http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

Found with Google in less than a minute.

Well, Andavari, first back to the basic question of hotfix uninstallers . . . how safe (or prudent) is it to remove them? What do you do -- keep them -- or delete them?

Also, in what folder are these uninstallers found and how do you identify them?