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Computers have a weird propensity for attracting unwanted items. No matter have careful you are, even restricting access to just yourself, clutter will build up on your computer and begin to take hold of your hard disk storage and system resources. While storage is less of a consideration with today’s multi-gigabyte hard disks available relatively cheaply, system resources still fall into the category of a vital element. Carrying out a regular spring clean of your computer help optimise performance.

However, with the complexity of the operating system and integration of various applications, it is not always obvious which items can be removed without have a roll-on effects resulting in other problems appearing. One solution is to use a software product such as All Cleaner which has been developed by Manaccom and is distributed in the UK by Phoenix Global software.

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As you might suppose from its title, All Cleaner is a program designed to help clean your computer by removing unnecessary files and debris. It works by targeting recognised areas that are affected by these unwanted items. All Cleaner will check for and remove invalid and useless files plus entries in the Registry. It can clean out history lists that build up through general usage and Internet activity plus remove temporary files that have been left behind by various applications.

Initially I had a problem installing this utility. An error message was thrown up and the installation stopped really before it had begun. This happened on three different machines using either Windows 98 or Windows XP Professional. After reporting this problem I was sent a replacement installation file which worked fine. What I could not understand was why both the original and replacement files had the same date, time and file size attributes yet produced different results.

Once loaded, All Cleaner opens with a fixed size window that is divided into a menu pane running down the left side and a main display area that allows the user to make appropriate selection plus buttons to cancel or activate the cleaning process. As you click on the different items in the menu so the content shown in the main area will change to reflect the current choice.

By default you start in the Clean Now section. A list of items for cleaning will be displayed. By clicking on items in this list you can temporally select those you do NOT wish to be included in the current clean up. A progress bar will keep you advised as the current task and, at the conclusion of the cleanup, the screen will show information regarding the number of files removed and the storage space that has been regained.

While this process is relatively straightforward, I do have a couple of concerns. First I would have preferred the option to click on an entry in the list to select it for cleaning rather than remove it from the task. This is more of a positive rather than negative approach. Second there is no undo feature in case you make an inappropriate selection. Mistakes can happen and some protection should be provided.

Perhaps the developer of the software feel they have the first concern covered with the Categories section in the menu. Although you can quickly deselect an item in the default clean-up listing, you do have the ability to customise this list from the Categories section. You can add and remove entries and the resulting list will then appear when selecting the Clean Now choice. Other items in the menu include viewing a report on the previous and cumulative clean actions; the means to set a Clean schedule; select cookies to be kept; and manage plugs ins.

All Cleaner costs £9.99 making it a reasonable purchase as long as you are selective in the areas that the program is allowed to tackle. The software will run on any Windows system from 98 onwards. Other system requirements are a 233MHz processor, 64MB hard disk space and 32MB of RAM.

http://www.phoenixglobalsoftware.co.uk/soap_box/all_cleaner/index.asp