On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 23:44:15 -0400, "Athanasian Creed <><"
<athanasian_creed(NOSPAM)@(NOSPAM)hotmail.com> wrote:

>Greetings all,
>
>I just recently reinstalled Win Vista Ultimate and approx. 25 programs along
>with it (all up-to-date versions)
>
>After doing all that, i wanted to run CCleaner to get rid of whatever crap
>buildup was present. To my absolute horror, there was approx. 2.5 GIGS of
>garbage after a clean install plus around 100 registry entries. Where the
>heck did all the crap come from???

CCleaner gives you a list to check. You didn't? As to the volume of
files... probably mostly temporary files from all the installations.
No big deal.

> I've never experienced having so much,
>much less on a clean, fresh install!!! When i went to clean the build up, i
>noticed that CCleaner (??) had placed some files, around 15 or so (eg.
>notepad.exe, explorer.exe) in C:/Windows, individually under all the file
>folders.

CCleaner doesn't move a thing.

>I (foolishly) deleted all the files, thinking they were duplicates (they
>weren't!!!) Obviously, deleting explorer.exe meant that upon restart
>Windows won't boot (thank GOD for Rollback Rx!!!)
>
>I'm at a loss as to what to do - clean or leave be??

Run the System File Checker.

Google it if you don't know what it is or how to do it.