FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT HDCleaner — Stay out of my store! By Deanna McElveen Today’s featured program is a way for you to stay out of my computer store and
[See the full post at: HDCleaner — Stay out of my store!]
![]() |
There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented on this site. |
SIGN IN | Not a member? | REGISTER | PLUS MEMBERSHIP |
-
HDCleaner — Stay out of my store!
Home » Forums » Newsletter and Homepage topics » HDCleaner — Stay out of my store!
- This topic has 21 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 3 weeks, 1 day ago.
AuthorTopicDeanna McElveen
AskWoody_MVPViewing 18 reply threadsAuthorReplies-
felix44h21
AskWoody Plus -
AC641
AskWoody Plus -
Perito
AskWoody PlusHDCleaner repeatedly crashed on my computer. I would run it repeatedly and it would occasionally remain long enough to get the main screen installed. Then, I would ask it to analyze something and it would crash. I tried restarting it – nada. I tried rebooting my system. That did not help. I tried the 32-bit version. That crashed repeatedly also.
(Windows 10, 21H2, Build 19044.2130)
-
geekdom
AskWoody_MVPHDCleaner ran without difficulties, although it might be wise to avoid the registry cleaner.
BleachBit is a nice alternative:
https://www.bleachbit.org/Carpe Diem {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1413 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox112.0b3 MicrosoftDefender1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Microfix
AskWoody MVP
-
bbearren
AskWoody MVPI got rid of CCleaner years ago. I found that it didn’t do any better than Windows’ Disk Cleanup after running many, many comparisons.
I downloaded HDCleaner, extracted the zip file to its own folder and ran the executable from there. It ran without difficulty. The Registry Cleaner found less than 100 “no file” entries (I use Revo Uninstaller to remove programs), and I went through those to see that it was an accurate representation.
I ran the default settings with no difficulty, no hiccups afterward. It seems to be a decent utility.
Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do. We don't all have to do the same things.Still Anonymous
AskWoody PlusI’ve known about HDCleaner for a couple of years, but never tried it. I’m still (mostly) satisfied with CCleaner, but I’ve also found BleachBit to be a good alternative.
The one thing that gives me pause about HDCleaner (as with most tools of this type) is the offer of a registry cleaner, and promotion of it as a way of improving performance and stability. That may have been true in the era of Windows XP and earlier, but modern Windows installations are stable enough that registry cleaners/defraggers/compressors are of cosmetic value, at best, and risk damage to a machine.
It’s easy enough to ignore the registry tools (and a positive with BleachBit is that the mostly don’t touch registry), but I wish that the developers of HDCleaner (and competing products) would have the guts to remove those features, and stop pretending that they accomplish anything useful.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Peobody
AskWoody PlusHDCleanerx64 crashed once during my test of it. The crash occurred when switching from Options to Cleaning. I did a registry backup with it then could not find anything within HDCleaner that provided the path to where the backup files were written. Eventually I found them in a \Settings\Backups subdirectory of the HDCleaner.exe home directory. There is no way to save them anywhere else. If you move them someplace else, there is no way to navigate to them within the restore function of HDCleaner. This is a deal breaker for me. I want a registry backup to be located where it will be included in HD backups (I don’t routinely backup portable apps).
Steve S.
AskWoody PlusI abandoned CCleaner for reasons of privacy and security a few years ago. I now use PrivaZer which I definitely find better than CCleaner ever was. For those who want more granular control, the PrivaZer user interface could definitely use a rework, but once the “advanced user” is chosen and you spend some time in a deeper dive, it works a trick. Never had problems with it. (I have registry cleaning turned off! 😉)
I’ll take a look at HDCleaner here soon and see what I think, though. Thanks for the tip!
Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 21H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.
rogerlmartin
AskWoody Plusdown loaded hdcleaner from oldergeeks. extracted. would not run. got message from windows defender stating it was protecting me & would not run it. after trying a lot of things, i finally found in the properties of the hdcleaner.exe a box hat was checked stating it was blocked because it was from another computer. i unchecked the box. now it works fine. i run bitdefender security. don’t know if that was theproblem or not.
Alex5723
AskWoody PlusCharlie
AskWoody PlusCCleaner was recommended to me by a computer tech for my new Windows 7 machine I had built in 2012. CCleaner has always worked great for me on Win 7 even when I use the registry cleanup occasionally to clean out items leftover after uninstalling a program. CCleaner gives you the option to save the registry entries in a .reg file before it deletes them which is a very good feature.
This applies to my Win 7, but I won’t guarantee it working on the Win 10’s and 11’s.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake as soon as you make it again.
davidtango
AskWoody PlusHDCleaner looks like an interesting, useful piece of software. I wish I could get it to work on my PC, a recent ASUS desktop with Windows 11.
It loads to the dashboard, but once I start any preview operation it crashes almost instantly. (I am running it with Admin privileges.)
Checking properties of the EXE file, I ran the compatibility troubleshooter, which recommended Win 8. It does run with compatibility set to Win 8, but I don’t feel secure in trusting it to make changes to my system.
Kathy Stevens
AskWoody PlusJust downloaded and ran HDCleaner on one of our Windows 10 work stations.
The app found 2,444 problems (410 MB) including:
- Browsers (Brave, Firefox. Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge) – 668 Problems (14.4 MB),
- System (Temporary Files and Windows Log Files) – 1,755 Problems (395 MB),
- Plugins (MS OneDrive) – 21 Problems (153 KB), and
- Registry – 202 Problems
Despite all of the “Problems” that HDCleaner detected the computer is working well.
Our standard practice is to clean up our machines using CCleaner Custom Clean and HP’s Performance Tune-up Check (System File Checker, Empty Recycle Bin, and Clean Web-browsers history, cookies, and cache) periodically. We avoid the other tools available in CCleaner.
When we run Western Digital’s Dash Board on the computer’s C drive, a 2000.4 GB SSD, it reports that the drive’s health is Normal and has:
- 1714.8 GB Free,
- 284.6 GB Used,
- 0.6 GB Unallocated, and
- 0.4 GB Other.
Our approach to managing our PC’s is – if it isn’t broke don’t fix it – and we are concerned that HDCleaner may be to aggressive when it comes to “cleaning up” our systems.
In other words, do we run a chance of damaging our systems by “excessive” cleaning?
1 user thanked author for this post.
Matthew Tisdel
GuestThanks for the recommendation. I have wanted to get rid of CCleaner – it works great, but is not free for commercial use. Unlike some people above, I would often go to CCleaner just for the Registry cleaning. I have read that it “should” no longer be necessary, but I found Registry Cleaning to help Win10 machines that are exhibiting strange behavior. It is sort of a last ditch effort before reloading.
I do have a question. I was unable to find any information the HDCleaner website about licensing. Is it licensed for home and commercial use?
Fred
AskWoody PlusDeanna McElveen you are so very right with HDCleaner.
Kurt Zimmerman has many nice programs, but some manual reading is never wasted.
Sometimes is changing setting immediately, and that’s unhandy when one is hasty.CCleaner is phoning home and tracks you. The portable version is rather okay and easy to stop
* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *JohnReam
AskWoody PlusGib Gilbertson
GuestI’m very lucky I had a recent backup of my O.S. drive because, after running HDCleaner, my computer was pretty much set to defaults for everything.
I had lost all bookmarks, extensions, and tabs in browsers. All desktop settings including any shortcuts for documents, folders, and program shortcuts that run directly and don’t go through an installation procedure. When I tried to run Thunderbird, I discovered all my e-mail accounts, folders, and e-mail no longer existed. Lucky I had configured Thunderbird to use a different drive for my e-mail.
I ended up swapping to my Backup SSD and booting from that. Then taking a half a day to get Thunderbird working correctly again.
You might want to be careful and make sure you have a backup of all your data before using HDCleaner.
1 user thanked author for this post.
WSLarry Laughman
AskWoody Plusbbearren
AskWoody MVPI’m still using HDCleaner with the latest update, v2.040 (64-bit), with no issues.
Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do. We don't all have to do the same things.Ben Myers
AskWoody PlusI downloaded and tried HDCleaner today, after using CCleaner for many years as my go-to cleanup tool. It looks like HDCleaner may be a little more comprehensive, but I need to run some tests to compare the two better. I do like the fact that HDCleaner does not nag you to buy the pro version.
Like many people, I use my browser keeping a large number of web pages active in browser tabs. After I did the cleanup of browser cache, I had to hit the F5 key to refresh most of the web pages. Makes sense when one thinks about it.
A good find and a good reason to go back and look at previous AskWoody issues.
Viewing 18 reply threads -

Plus Membership
Donations from Plus members keep this site going. You can identify the people who support AskWoody by the Plus badge on their avatars.
AskWoody Plus members not only get access to all of the contents of this site -- including Susan Bradley's frequently updated Patch Watch listing -- they also receive weekly AskWoody Plus Newsletters (formerly Windows Secrets Newsletter) and AskWoody Plus Alerts, emails when there are important breaking developments.
Get Plus!
Welcome to our unique respite from the madness.
It's easy to post questions about Windows 11, Windows 10, Win8.1, Win7, Surface, Office, or browse through our Forums. Post anonymously or register for greater privileges. Keep it civil, please: Decorous Lounge rules strictly enforced. Questions? Contact Customer Support.
Search Newsletters
Search Forums
View the Forum
Search for Topics
Recent Topics
-
Italy bans chatGPT over privacy.
by
Alex5723
52 minutes ago -
Windows 11 Insider Preview build 25330 released to Canary
by
joep517
2 hours, 6 minutes ago -
Windows 11 Insider Preview build 23424 released to DEV
by
joep517
2 hours, 9 minutes ago -
Betterbird updates
by
Alex5723
5 hours, 36 minutes ago -
Windows 2000 – Windows 11 Not Responding Prompts!
by
Alex5723
12 hours, 21 minutes ago -
40+ macOS Keyboard Shortcuts you NEED to know
by
Alex5723
12 hours, 10 minutes ago -
backup web hotmail to local drive.
by
Oberon
11 hours, 26 minutes ago -
Vinyl nostalgia
by
Microfix
7 hours, 45 minutes ago -
March 31st is world backup day.
by
Alex5723
11 hours, 48 minutes ago -
Using an iPad and replying with a selected quote
by
WCHS
17 hours, 41 minutes ago -
Plex Media Server support ending for older versions of…
by
Alex5723
1 day ago -
BingBang: The AAD misconfiguration in Azure Active Directory
by
Alex5723
1 day, 1 hour ago -
May I add another HD to my tower?
by
Rush2112
1 day, 1 hour ago -
Pwn2Own: Tesla 3 infotainment hacked in 2 minutes
by
Alex5723
1 day, 8 hours ago -
Another Windows media creation tool? Sure, why not.
by
Alex5723
2 days ago -
Microsoft Defender : Legit URLs marked as malicious
by
Alex5723
22 hours, 38 minutes ago -
Refurbished HP ProBook
by
Kathy Stevens
52 minutes ago -
Microsoft PC Manager (beta) updates
by
Alex5723
1 day, 6 hours ago -
Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes an official flavor, making Linux Mint obsolete
by
Alex5723
3 hours, 20 minutes ago -
HDMI KVM switch for DP
by
freelab23
2 days, 14 hours ago -
My Experience with Win 11 ver 22H2
by
agoldhammer
2 days, 21 hours ago -
Email from Mail on my iPhone to Gmail address failed
by
DrRon
19 hours, 30 minutes ago -
Can’t Update Win 10 past 21H2
by
cmndo97
2 days, 23 hours ago -
Revo Uninstaller (freeware) Updates
by
Microfix
5 hours, 58 minutes ago -
The Third deployment phase for CVE-2022-37967 starts April 11, 2023
by
Alex5723
2 days, 23 hours ago -
Firefox to support Windows 7 and 8 systems well into 2024 at least
by
Alex5723
2 days, 8 hours ago -
Microsoft 365 Personal – Repeated Free Two Month Extensions
by
BarryEB
1 day, 22 hours ago -
KB5023702 for Server 2019 – Defer as of MPL March 27
by
Aviel
2 days, 7 hours ago -
eSIM out, iSIM in?
by
Alex5723
3 days, 9 hours ago -
MS-DEFCON 4: Win11 22H2 not ready for prime time
by
Susan Bradley
42 seconds ago
Recent blog posts
Key Links
Want to Advertise in the free newsletter? How about a gift subscription in honor of a birthday? Send an email to sb@askwoody.com to ask how.
Mastodon profile for DefConPatch
Mastodon profile for AskWoody
Home • About • FAQ • Posts & Privacy • Forums • My Account
Register • Free Newsletter • Plus Membership • Gift Certificates • MS-DEFCON Alerts
Copyright ©2004-2023 by AskWoody Tech LLC. All Rights Reserved.