HardDrive PowerWash

[Methical]

Just stumbled across this. Its not portable, which is a shame. But is powerful. I ran a scan with this vs the latest release of CCleaner (came out today) with the winapp2.ini file in play.

CCleaner detected 36.5mb
HDD PowerWash detected 482.63mb

It is freeware as well. Hunting around for the license now to check if is free to use for commercial purposes.

A closer look at the program, it seems like it does a recursive delete based on file extension. Here is the official blacklist:

*._tm / *.1st / *.bak / *.nav / *.log / *.$$$ / *.old / *.prv / *.??~ / *.gid / *.tmp / *.syd / *.~* / *.~mp / *~.* / *.bk! / *.bk$ / *.bk4 / *.bk5 / *.bk6 / *.bk7 / *.bk8 / *.bk9 / *.bkp / *.$a / *.$db / *.&&& / *.--- / *._dd / *._mp / *.chk / *.xlk / *.db$ / *.diz / *.dmp / *.err / *.ftg / *.fts / *.ilk / *.ncb / *.pch / *.sik / *.temp / chklist.* / mscreate.dir / pspbrwse.jbf / Thumbs.db

This list can also be customized to suit your own specific needs. (index.dat anyone?)

I am wonderin' about the .log and .dmp files though. These can be valuable when repairing a computer. I think when I go to repair a computer; if i do use this app, ill disable clenaing of these two extensions, and then enable them when im POSITIVE the computer is squeeky clean.

Of course, Hard Drive Powerwash FREE does so much more for you than 'just' searching and deleting files. You can activate or de-activate Windows Vista's User Account Control (UAC), you can start the program from the systray icon with each Windows startup, you can set the scheduler to start cleaning processes on a regular base, you get a short summary how many disk space already has been recovered since you use the program ... just check it out!

http://www.harddrivepowerwash.com/

[kdyer]

This seems preetty cool.. However, you have to register (free) it or it expires in 10 days.

Thanks,

Kent

[iisjman07]

awsomeness...................

[JosephLeo]

Eh, deleting by file extension sounds dangerous. There's no way to differentiate between a log file and a possible software-specific critical file. Sure it finds more, but I will stick to the safe routine. Even techies make mistakes, and with a standard routine thing like this your odds of making one are increased exponentially.

So, CCLeaner is my go to tool- I will however setup a test system and see if I like it.


EDIT After a quick analyzation of my main PC I realized that this thing is in quite EXTREMELY dangerous. Now, for the context of what it was going to delete isn't dangerous. But if I found something on my hard drive that shouldn't be deleted then that most likely means there will be things on other peoples computers. This is using the default settings of course, but those settings should always be the safest.

Anyway, the files it was going to delete was the Left 4 Dead map files. More specifically the Left 4 Dead .nav files. I would reccommend this to only to those who are concerned about bits and bytes and are extreme professionals and can pay attention to the most minute of details.