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How to install CCleaner on WIndows

 

I am going to show you how to install CCleaner on Windows. This article is going to be useful for beginners. Like all my articles I am going to comment each picture in order to fully understand the steps for a normal installation procedure. First of all, you will need to download CCleaner ( in case that you already obtained your copy you may skip this part ) from here. Please remember the location where you save the program and make sure to double click the executable. You should see a similar picture with this one ( I used Windows XP SP3 when I installed this program, in Windows Vista this window may look a little different ). Make sure to click on the "Run" button to open the executable file.

 

Open File - Security Dialog window in Windows XP SP3 when opening executable files

 

Now you should see a small window that will ask you to select a language. The default language is "English" and this article will be in English language. Press "OK" button to continue.

 

Select a language, the default is "English"

 

The third window will show you the following message "Welcome to the CCleaner version Setup Wizard" ( I replaced v.2.18 with version since new versions appears all the time ) which tells us what version we are going to install on our computer. If you think that this is a bad version, you can "Cancel" the installation process now or choose to continue by clicking on the "Next" button.

 

Welcome to Setup Wizard Window

 

The following window is the normal window displayed at almost all programs called "license Agreement"and tells you to "Please review the license terms before installing CCleaner v*" so make sure to read the entire agreement and press "I Agree" button to continue with the installation.

 

Licence Agreement window - Make sure to read the entire agreement

 

It's time to choose a folder to install CCleaner, by default it will be installed in the "C:\Program Files\CCleaner" ( if it doesn't exist, this folder will be created ) so if you want to choose another location you can do it by using the "Browse" button and choose another location. If you want to leave this as it is and continue with the installation, click on the "Next" button.

 

Choose a different folder if you want to install this program to other location

 

As you can see there are some additional options to choose from when you're installing this application. In this picture I will show you what are my options but you can choose to customize your own options. For example I don't need to add a start menu shortcut and I don't want to "add CCleaner Yahoo! Toolbar and use CCleaner from your browser". If you are not sure about this, make sure to check the same options like I did in this picture. Click on the "Install" button and wait a couple of seconds up to a couple of minutes ( depending on how fast is your computer ).

 

Customize your installation by adding or removing any additional options

 

Finally, the installation process has ended if you will see the same or similar window with the one from this picture :

 

The software has been installed on your computer

 

We have just finished the installation process and it's now time to open CCleaner for the first time and learn some simple things. Locate the CCleaner icon on your desktop and open it. You should see a similar picture with this one.

 

When opened this is how CCleaner looks

 

Now make sure to click on the "Cleaner" button, by default the program should be on this area and click on the "Analyze" button. It should take a couple of seconds and the small blank window should change and show you some sort of log file. That means that this program has found a lot of files that needs to be deleted, to do so click on the "Run Cleaner" button.

 

CCleaner doing his job - cleaning your system from unecessary files

 

If you chosed the "Run Cleaner" button you should see a small window with a small warning message : "This process will permanently delete files from your system. Are you sure you wish to proceed ?"

 

Before removing anything - CCleaner needs your confirmation

 

Choose "OK" and you should see another message appearing in that small window located inside of CCleaner. "Cleaning Complete" message tells you that the cleaning process has ended.

 

CCleaner has finished the cleaning process

 

As you may noticed, there are some other buttons besides of "Cleaner", you should also see "Registry", "Tools" and "Options". These should be used by experienced users only. Don't use the "Registry" section unless you really know what you're doing. Here is a good idea for using the "Registry" feature. Let's suppose that you already have a backup of your work and that your computer was affected by malware and you want to do something to correct some errors related to your computer registry. You have nothing to loose and it's a good idea to use the "Registry" feature to fix detected problems. Using other features is out of the purpose of this article that shows you only how to install CCleaner on Windows and how to perform a basic scan of your PC. However in time after getting more familiarized with this program you can use all features available. Make sure to use the latest version and update this software as it's going to be extremely useful.