CCleaner on a server benefits and pitfalls?

[beancole]

I use CCleaner on my home pc and its installed on all my machines accross the network as its handy for numerous things. My question though is does anyone have it on their server? It is advertised as works on windows server but I am very cautious for obvious reasons about using it to clear out caches etc.

 

Am I being over cautious and what do you use CCleaner for, or indeed other houskeeping software, that makes life easier.

[abillybob]

I personally wouldn't use CCleaner on any networked machines or servers. I see it as home use software only. I don't know the specifics of why it's not recommended but I've always heard it's a big no no!?

Could be wrong though.

[ForgotMyPassword]

It might be okay as a one-hit thing if you're desperately short on disk space and have tried the 'official' routes, but I'd see it as largely unnecessary on a server which shouldn't have users logging onto it or much local software running at all.

 

What problem are you trying to fix?

[strawberry]

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. The risk compared to the benefit doesn't justify letting a piece of software loose on a server. What benefits were you hoping to achieve?

[beancole]

I think this answers my question. I thought it was a long shot that it would be useful, there is a network professional version. This was more a speculative question than anything else and with no problem in mind.

[synaesthesia]

Even the network/professional version won't know how to handle server stuff properly and a registry clean is likely to touch things it shouldn't. Stay well clear; besides which, any production server should never be exposed to the sort of things CCleaner is designed to clean up.

[Oaktech]

I use it on one server with low hard disk space.

 

Basically all it does is clear down log files, internet cache and user MRU lists but it's a handy one stop shop for those functions to give me some room to maneuver.

[RichCowell]

I've run just the executable in the past, but only on the terminal server for remote access when the C drive was full and I couldn't expand it without rebooting, and I to free some space up quickly... I wouldn't use it on a server to monitor/automatically do anything...

[sonofsanta]

I much prefer to clean up server disk space manually so I know what's happening, I'd never trust an automated tool on a server.

 

cleanmgr is my first port of call (once you've added it in -- step 2 of this guide), and here's a list of other locations worth emptying (especially log files): https://help.maximumasp.com/KB/a494/my-server-says-low-space-on-c-drive.aspx

 

EDIT: I've just realised that reads as "I never use a tool, the first thing I do is use this tool", so thought I'd clarify that cleanmgr is the built in Windows tool and behaves itself very nicely.

[unixman_again]

You could run ccleaner in analyse mode and then decide if you want to follow it's advice and delete the stuff manually.

[elsiegee40]

The biggest problem is the license... as ever this product may be free, but it is not intended for use in businesses.

 

Commercial use of CCleaner Free is NOT permitted.

- You may NOT use the Product in corporate or commercial environments.

 

Now whether or not that includes education is debatable, but more often than not schools are counted as commercial/corporate for licensing.

 

Source: https://www.piriform.com/legal/software-license/ccleaner

Edited April 21, 2015 by elsiegee40

[gmonks]

I wouldn't use CCleaner on a server. If I had to use it for clearing up / regaining space I'd do it manually.

[timbo343]

We use treesize free on our servers to find out what is taking up all the space.

[elsiegee40]

We use treesize free on our servers to find out what is taking up all the space.

 

so do we... and very handy it is too

[sonofsanta]

WinDirStat is another good one, and has the added advantage of making you look really intelligent if someone walks in while it's open. As far as anyone else is concerned, you may as well be watching the green ASCII waterfall and seeing the Matrix.