i do windows – deep-clean your viewers at i live in science land

there was some interest the other day around the blog post of my accidental tech discovery of a viewer issue i had

when i saw that Imprudence 1.3.2 was maxing out one of my CPU cores i was bummed and thought i’d have to go back to the older viewer. i almost uninstalled it; i had even downloaded the older viewer (link to all Imprudence viewers) but something nagged at me and i decided to do a “deep-clean” of my viewers. it probably did not help having three different viewers installed and Dream Walker provided a great comment regarding that: set a custom location for each viewer’s cache! she is a clever one =)

i am pretty OCD about my pc and run CCleaner and Defraggler on a weekly basis and have been using Revo Uninstaller for a few months now. i don’t know if there are Mac versions of these types of tools, but i believe Mac does registry very differently and might not accumulate conflicts like Windows can

i use the free versions of these three tools and these tools affect serious areas of your machine. you should not use these if you you are not comfortable with things that change your registry

i have been using CCleaner (originally called Crap Cleaner!!!) and Defraggler for a few years now and know of a few companies whose IT departments use them as well. i have never had any issues with either one, but please only use them if you understand what they can do (gee, i feel like a lawyer, but you have your grown-up underwear on and are capable of making up your own mind) =)

so here is what i do listed as the caption of each image and in addition to these steps, some dialogues come up asking for your confirmation – first make sure you have the installers for whatever browsers you will be reinstalling (i once uninstalled something, i can’t remember what it was, and then could not find it anywhere on the web!) and second, if you need to keep your IM and chat logs, make sure to move them into another folder

select your viewer (one at a time if multiple) and click Uninstall. under Tools there is also a Junk Files cleaner that can clean up old stuff left beind from past uninstalls and other old and junk Windows files

the default is "Moderate", pull up your underwear and select "Advanced" but only if you are comfortable (or have a good backup - in other words, at your own risk)

phew, that was not so bad - hit next . . .

just a progress screen, hit Next when it's done

here is where it actually deletes Registry entries - you can expand them and read exactly what is being affected - i used to stress here, but now i just select them all (ooh, sooo brave eh?) =p when it's done, hit Next

this deletes associated files, all your configurations and your chat/IM logs, so if you need to keep those, it is best to move or copy them before doing the deep cleaning. once done hit Next to get to a screen that doesn't do anything except make you click another button! =p

woot! you only got here because you decided this was a good idea! (lol, more pseudo-legal talk!) maybe i should just say this blog post is for entertainment purposes only and should not be done without consulting a professional. side effects of deep cleaning may include headache, erectile dysfunction, constipation, priapsim especially in 7 foot tall avatars with large chests (those are boys), sore throat, deep throat, and/or loss of olives. professional avatar on a closed grid - do not attempt

empty the recycle bin & whatever else you have selected in the left menu

further clean the Registry - this does remove Registry entries *warning, warning, warning* - if you have never run CCleaner you may have a lot of entries here and CCleaner can be configured to let you back those up before deletion - if it is your first time you may need to run this another time or two to get them all

welcome to the OCD side! there are several options here - Quick Defrag, regular defrag, even defragging the freespace - an obsessive person's dream! =)

all files inside the viewer's app data folder should be gone - this includes any log files that you may want/need to keep. why would anyone keep these? apart from drama, it can be a very good idea for people doing in-world commerce to keep their chat logs - if you don't need these, turn them off in preferences and save some bandwidth for other things =)

Hi Ener

You are so helpful and thank you for taking the time and trouble to explain how you do things.

Gaga

26 May 11 at 8:24 am

you are very welcome – i like sharing things that help me =)

i need to complete tonite’s post, i have been goofing off on YouTube and the fail blog! =p

Ener Hax

26 May 11 at 8:54 pm

[...] it if one of the cpu cores wasn’t maxed out again! last week i had this same issue and did a “deep” uninstall of all my viewers and only installed Imprudence 1.3.2 SSE and all seemed well . . [...]