DisCleaner

[I am Baas]

DisCleaner is an orthodox application designed to clean your hard disc drives.

http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/soft ... index.html



Dl @ http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/soft ... -win32.zip

[guinness]

Never seen a religious disk cleaner before.

[allclownsareevil]

Never seen a religious disk cleaner before.

There are a few members of the Catholic church that could have used one in recent weeks.

Not a bad program, although it can be a little over-reaching in it's scope. It managed to delete several shortcuts I had to folders with the word "temp" in them. Thankfully not the folders themselves though.

Nice find, thanks for the post.

[teletype68]

Good morning,

This is Alex, the programmer of DisCleaner. I have stumbled upon this forum thread by accident. But I am very pleased to see people are discussing this computer program. Even though it was a short discussion it really helped me to fix the bug reported by allclownsareevil. I only did it in version 2.5.0.455, due to late finding of this thread.

Some history now. I have started programming this DisCleaner back in 2003 but development was initially slower than I would have liked. Without constant User feedback it was difficult to spot the real-life scenarios that people were employing back then. In the meantime DisCleaner arrived at version 2.5.1.463 with major improvements over the initial versions. Development is still ongoing though. I am constantly trying to improve this software, maybe somebody will find it useful. I strongly believe in the portable software concept. That is no traces left on the Windows registration database and no impact whatsoever on the host computer. This means that DisCleaner will always be as small as possible and as portable as possible. At the moment it even fits on a floppy disk and it is able to run without any other external dependencies.

In the end I would like to restate my appreciation for taking your time to discuss this program.

PS: I am sorry for the "religious" confusion. What I originally wanted to say in the documentation was an analogy with the OFM (orthodox file managers) concept. But after some research I have found out that there is absolutely no set of rules that will define some form of "classical" drive cleaner. Thus I have coined the wrong term which triggered the confusion. I have longtime updated the documentation and removed that phrase.

Thank you,
Alex

[webfork]

Welcome to the website and thanks for letting us know that our feedback was helpful.

I haven't tested your program but I did have a few notes from looking at the website:
* Could you post your license somewhere?
* What operating systems does it support? Does it work with very old and very new versions of windows?
* Any video intros you could post about? Those are usually a big draw.

Some other possible features:
* Scheduled clean (e.g. daily, weekly)
* File wipe capability (just a simple overwrite might be valuable)
* Support for the Winapp2.ini custom file set

If you were looking for more input/feedback, you might consider setting up a Github account (or similar service). It doesn't guarantee involvement (there are plenty of sleepy Github projects) but you might invoke something more.

[teletype68]

Hi webfork,

I believe that on this page (http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/software.html) under the DisCleaner item it is stated "License type: Free". However I fully agree with you that the term is a little bit vague.

But in the documentation (http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/soft ... index.html) I have wrote the following lines which I believe I need to reiterate somewhere on the site as well.

Important Note: This program may be used freely, without restrictions, apart from modifying, disassembling or reverse engineering the compiled source code or the files within the package. The compiled content includes executable files and modules, help documentation, embedded graphical content, and so on. Any reproduction or illegal copy of this content, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. This program is closed source.

Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any loss of information caused by misuse of DisCleaner. You are encouraged to carefully read this help documentation to learn about the repercussions of certain actions that are categorized as unsafe. As with any stored data manipulation software, you are responsible for your actions in case of unwanted data loss. Use this program at your own risk.

Also in the documentation I have put the hardware and software requirements, as such.

System Requirements

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000, NT, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10
Minimum Processor: 486DX4/120 MHz or Pentium® class processor running at 100 MHz or higher
Recommended Processor: Pentium® class processor running at 1.6 GHz
Memory: at least 32 Mo RAM (512 Mo recommended)
Screen Resolution: at least 800x600px (1024x768px recommended)
Video Subsystem: at least 4 Mo VRAM and 2D acceleration

Maybe it is a good ideea to post them on the website as well. Originally I was supporting Microsoft Windows 95 through 98. But then I officially dropped support on this. However, DisCleaner might still work with these versions on a reduced functionality set.

Regarding the video intros, this would be a very nice feature indeed. I need to see what I can do in this area because video editing is not one of my strong points. But I can learn.

Regarding the other items in your post:

* Scheduled clean (e.g. daily, weekly)
--> this is work-in-progress; next version will have this feature;
* File wipe capability (just a simple overwrite might be valuable)
--> already implemented;
* Support for the Winapp2.ini custom file set
--> this is a very good idea of which I have not thought about; scheduled for implementation in a future version.

Regarding uploading the code on a public GitHub repository, I really don't know. This program is closed-source at the moment and will probably always be.

Thank you,
Alex

[teletype68]

Just one mention. The direct download link mentioned in the first topic points to a very old version.
For the latest version, you need to manually get it from this link: http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/soft ... index.html

[webfork]

I believe that on this page (http://www.alexandrugroza.ro/mptec/software.html) under the DisCleaner item it is stated "License type: Free". However I fully agree with you that the term is a little bit vague.

That's a hugely common problem with freeware programs I look at. Licenses are the least fun but one of the best indicators of project maturity (in my experience). The disclaimer bit (which you pointed to in your reply) is usually my biggest ask.

Also in the documentation I have put the hardware and software requirements, as such.

Cool, thanks.

Maybe it is a good ideea to post them on the website as well. Originally I was supporting Microsoft Windows 95 through 98. But then I officially dropped support on this.

Understandable. The number of users who will be looking for this functionality is extremely small. The earliest operating system I would pay any attention to for any reason (apart from old games) is Win2k.

Regarding the video intros, this would be a very nice feature indeed. I need to see what I can do in this area because video editing is not one of my strong points. But I can learn.

Good to hear. It's been on my todolist for years to come up with video intros for various freeware programs but I've only built a handful. Maybe once I get some bandwidth I can build that for you.

Scheduled clean (e.g. daily, weekly) --> this is work-in-progress; next version will have this feature
> File wipe capability (just a simple overwrite might be valuable) --> already implemented

Very cool on both counts. You didn't offer Guttman wipe did you? That stupid protocol just won't die.

Support for the Winapp2.ini custom file set --> this is a very good idea of which I have not thought about; scheduled for implementation in a future version.

Awesome, glad that was useful.

Regarding uploading the code on a public GitHub repository, I really don't know. This program is closed-source at the moment and will probably always be.

Understandable. We obviously aren't an open-source only site, it's just something to solicit input.