github[.]com/Artexis10/endstate

github[.]com/Artexis10/endstate-gui/releases

Endstate is designed to be useful for people that buy a new PC/laptop & IT folks who have to set up a bunch of devices. The idea is that you create a snapshot of a copy of Windows with your desired software installed, and then use that snapshot to add the same software, *including the settings*, to a new copy of Windows. Not every app is supported, but if the software you use [or most of it] is, it could save you some time.

github[.]com/IridiumIO/CompactGUI

learn.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/compact

store.steampowered[.]com/app/4339880/Game_Compressor/

Compact.exe is Windows builtin tool to compress files and folders, Not in a packaged file like Zip or 7Zip, but individually on disk. Those files are automatically uncompressed on-the-fly when Windows or whatever app accesses them. How much space is saved depends on the type of file along with the file itself. The overhead to uncompress the files before use is minimal, and some games are reported to actually show an increase in performance because it takes less time to read smaller files. Years ago, when Microsoft was promoting cheaper tablets with low storage, using the compact OS option was popular, but not so much since then. But today it seems there's a revival for gaming, given the rapid increase of hard drive/SSD prices. I thought it might help with drive image backup sizes, but so far it doesn't appear to make the expected difference.

CompactGUI is what the name says, a GUI to make using Compact Much easier. It lets you choose the compression algorithm and shows you the expected new size of a folder alongside the original, so you can see if it's worth it. There are 2 versions, one with .NET 9 & one without. The version without does not seem to work with .NET 10 (?). A folder is added to the Users Local folder where settings are stored, a shortcut is added to the Start Menu, and there's an option to add it to the right click context menu in Explorer. I found CompactGUI via an article on Tom's Hardware where the author recommended the app linked above on Steam, but that one's not free.

on1[.]com/landing/nonoise-2024-free/?srsltid=AfmBOop5fiOPTY7iyhligWhyNDCc84A9wWrutHelBVIdwh1I4Bqv3T27

ON1's been making image editing software for a long time, so bottom line they're better at image editing AI software than developers focusing on AI, who then branch out into image editing. And noise removal is something that AI is generally very good at. Like other *local* AI apps -- apps that don't rely on AI running in the cloud -- you do need a discreet graphics card. GPUs that are part of the CPU don't have the necessary horsepower, and I've yet to see anything that states it uses an NPU.

neowin[.]net/software/easy-disk-checker-helps-detect-fake-usb-drives-repair-bad-sectors-and-recover-lost-data/

This one file, portable app appears to be developed by a Russian disk recovery company. It has several hard to find capabilities that might interest folks, but one rather obscure feature is what attracted me... it gives you the VID and PID for flash drives. From time to time I've had Windows decide it didn't like a USB stick, though it would still work fine on another PC. And usually deleting it from the registry restores normal operation. But it can be a huge hassle finding out which registry entries go with that one USB stick. This might help.

Supported hardware:

USB, NVMe, SATA, and PATA controllers
Hard drives (HDD) and SSDs (SATA / NVMe)
External USB drives
USB flash drives and memory cards
DDR4 and DDR5 RAM

Diagnostics:

Viewing the logical structure of a drive
Display disk parameters (number of LBAs, sector size, fw version, rpm, etc.)
View Seagate FARM SMART attributes and logs
Determining the presence of HPA (Host Protected Area) and ATA password
Identification of the internal model of external HDDs (bypassing the USB bridge)
Determining SMR and TRIM support for USB HDDs
Output VID and PID for flash drives and microcontroller information
Reading and outputting the ID NAND microcontroller technocommand
Identifying Microsoft Storage Space member drives

Testing:

Surface Test: Full scan for bad sectors (bad blocks)
Counterfeit Check: Detecting Flash Drives with Fake Capacity
Benchmark: Measuring average reading speed

Repair:

Quick Erase: Forces a full MBR reset to completely fix any logical issues with your drive.
Bad Block Correction: Full sector-by-sector writing to correct soft-bad blocks or initialize the built-in defect replacement function where possible
Reading and troubleshooting DDR4 and DDR5 memory SPD dumps *

Backup:

Reading and writing sector-by-sector disk images without modification (*.bin)
Creating VHD/VHDX dynamic images and deploying them to a physical disk
Creating a partition (volume) image
Disk-to-disk cloning
Opening an image file in the built-in explorer with the option to export files and folders from it

Data recovery:

Recover deleted or lost files with the "smart save" feature *
Analysis and collection of statistics on disks and images infected with ransomware *
Automatic assembly of RAID arrays (Stripe, Mirror, Raid-5, Raid-6) from disks or images *
Search for video recordings on disks or images from DVR recorders *
Viewing and editing HEX contents of sectors
Recover damaged MBR/GPT records for lost or deleted partitions
View and copy files from FAT, NTFS, exFAT, Linux (Ext2/3/4), Mac (HFS+ and APFS), BTRFS, XFS, VMFS, Bitlocker, LVM partitions

wagnardsoft[.]com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5613

There are plenty of apps designed to clean, remove bloat, and/or customize Windows -- I called this one out because it has a few tweaks I haven't come across before *in the software I've looked at*. With a focus on gaming, there are several optimizations that might [slightly] reduce RAM use, which could also be a plus with devices & VMs with minimal RAM to start with. I came across it looking to download the latest version of DDU, a very widely used & well respected tool to remove graphics card drivers by the same dev. There's a portable version available.

neowin[.]net/software/killerpdf-130/

KillerPDF is a cute, 6MB .exe file that runs portably allowing you to do some basic editing of PDF files. When you run it a screen appears with options to add a shortcut and/or install, or you can uncheck the shortcut and just click run.

videoproc[.]com/campaign/calendar-giveaway.htm?cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&ttref=2603-easter-media-dlnews-dl-tyq.&cjevent=b30ed4ff24b511f1812100470a82b82c

This is a slightly limited version of the holiday giveaways we've been fortunate enough to get used to. Includes: VideoProc Converter AI, Vlogger, & WinX DVD Copy Pro, Aiarty Image Matting, Ashampoo WinOptimizer 27, & Photo Recovery 3, SwifDo PDF for MAC & Windows, SoftOrbits Flash Drive Recovery, Sketch Drawer, Photo Stamp Remover, Picture Doctor, & Icon Maker, Wise Program Uninstaller, Registry Cleaner, & Duplicate Finder, AnyViewer 6-Month, DoYourClone for MAC, Malware Hunter Pro, Donemax NTFS for MAC, DearMob iPhone Manager. The web page shows it'll run for 16 days, but also warns supplies are limited, so some offers may run out.

zdnet[.]com/article/windows-11-alternative-shells/

seelen[.]io/

github[.]com/eythaann/seelen-ui

Seelen is Interesting. It's a relatively small app that sits on top of Windows, doesn't add a ton of files or registry entries, doesn't take over anything really, and lets you give Windows a new look and feel. Depending on how you use Windows, it might even give you a productivity boost.

sharewareonsale[.]com/s/free-ashampoo-music-studio-2026-100-discount

There are not a lot of people who still burn discs, but we're there hiding in the shadows. ;) Nowadays I burn an archive DVD once a month with files & software I don't want to lose. I use either Nero or Ashampoo Burning Studio with a USB burner. FWIW I've got 2 drives, one DVD, one Blu-ray, that are thin laptop drives in external housings, and a full size Blu-ray burner with a USB adapter plugged into the back. While writable Blu-ray longevity may be questioned, DVDs are known to outlive us lowly humans.

on1[.]com

ON1 Effects 2025 is a large app, taking up ~550MB in the program's folder and 1.7GB in ProgramData\ ON1\. During installation you can choose where each of those folders is located, e.g., on another drive. ON1 is giving away Effects 2025 in hopes that it'll boost sales of their flagship Photo RAW. Rather than a key, ON1 requires you to have [or set up] an account -- when you 1st start the app you sign in that first time to unlock it.

When ON1 had a few offers on GOTD years ago their software took getting used to -- it wasn't that the GUI design was bad, but it was just Very different from most photo editing apps. Effects 2025 isn't That out of the ordinary, but it's definitely not a clone of any other app I'm aware of. Along with the app download itself they offer a downloadable PDF manual and an online Quick Start Course to get you going.

on1[.]com/videos/getting-started-in-effects-2025/

Effects 2025 does have & use AI, but not for things like enlarging or denoise -- you can buy those separately &/or they're included in the top end app. Effects 2025 uses AI to add generated looks, and has automatic subject/object selection. All in all this photo editing app with layers is well worth the free price, providing you've got the disk space.

neowin[.]net/software/bulk-rename-utility-4101/

In an earlier thread Dragonlair mentioned she uses this, so just a quick heads-up that there's a new version out.

sharewareonsale[.]com/s/free-ashampoo-zoom-2-100-discount

Ashampoo is selling Zoom 2 for $15, Zoom 3 for $20 [$15 upgrade], and Zoom 3 Pro for $40 [$30 upgrade]. Franzis is selling Zoom 2 Pro for $19 [includes Photoshop compatible plugins], but wants $99.99 for Zoom 3 Pro. The giveaway uses the Ashampoo app, and it looks like the two Zoom 3 apps from Ashampoo use it too, which may be a big downside, depending on how you feel about adding a bit of unnecessary bloat. I was able to get Ashampoo Zoom 2 working without the app after installing it in a VM, but I don't want to publish a how-to since it involves copying registry entries & files with the license activation or registration data, and *to me* that's over the line of what's permissible.

Zoom, as the name implies, is software to enlarge photos/images. It says Zoom 2 uses AI, but I think it's more along the lines of pre-AI machine learning, which as a plus keeps the size to a manageable 78MB -- AI software tends to start at ~1GB & go up from there. Zoom 2 is also fast -- quite a bit faster than Aiarty Image Enhancer for example. That said, I didn't see any signs of alterations, with the photo looking just like the original, with no degradation or improvement. It does allow you to save files in other formats besides .jpg -- not all of these apps do.

The Ashampoo app uses .NET & Webview 2, which means a Lot of smaller files. Zoom 2 OTOH follows Franzis standard format, though I believe it was written by a subcontractor, with the program's folder, a couple of folders in Users\ [UserName]\, and a folder in Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Local\. Like most all Franzis apps it installs Microsoft C/C++ runtime files, but itself only adds a couple of keys to the registry.

sharewareonsale[.]com/s/free-easeus-partition-master-pro-100-discount

Free for 6 days

Long ago EaseUS was a regular on GOTD with their partition & backup apps -- maybe we'll see them again? The download page said Version 3 -- now it's blank -- and the installed app is v. 19.23 Build 202510091552. I found newer versions listed on their web site, but both checking for updates and running the free installer from their web site afterward both said that this was the latest. What strikes me about EaseUS Partition Master Pro is a couple of the tools and the bootable USB stick you can create with the app. I have several partitioning apps, and frankly I don't want to devote 2.5GB of disk space for another, even if it does incorporate AI (?). But I could see the potential for their boot loader repair tools, as well as the Windows password remover. There's also a tool to find BitLocker keys, but I don't use BitLocker so couldn't try it out. The password removal did work testing it with a Win11 VM, though that VM did not use UEFI & Secure Boot -- the Win11 VM I have that uses UEFI & Secure Boot has no option for booting to an ISO, so I couldn't try it there. And since I don't have a copy of Windows that won't start, I could not test the boot repair tools either. I wound up installing EaseUS Partition Master Pro on my Windows To Go drive, that's intended for repairing Windows, and in case that won't boot to the target device, I created a bootable USB stick. That USB stick does work with UEFI & Secure Boot, and is the nicest setup I've seen, with several options including the Chrome browser & command prompt.

Installation adds the 2.5GB folder for the app itself, and adds folders to ProgramData, Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Local\ & Roaming\, as well as installing a few drivers. Because the tools are stored in separate folders in the main program's folder, someone ambitious *might* be able to get individual tools like the password remover working standalone.

I've found a few cases where AOMEI Partition Assistant did not have the option to update or add a license key, so had to (re)install it.

ashampoo[.]com/en-us/special/wallpapers?

aomeitech[.]com/partners/biggest-christmas-carnival-giveaway-8915.html

AOMEI Backupper *Home* v.8

While the offer says Home rather than Pro, the Backupper About window shows Pro. I could not find any reference to the Home version on AOMEI's site or using Google. This was an update to the prior giveaway I had. The bootable USB stick works, but Backupper adds a 2nd partition, presumably to store backups, & it does so in a way to possibly confuse the BIOS -- this PC's BIOS showed 2 USB drives with the same total capacity as the entire drive. Updated Backupper today, and it shows license expiring 12/8/26

AnyViewer Solo

UltraPic

Clicking the "Get It Now" button takes you to ultrapic[.]com/app/

Partition Assistant For Cleanup

This is version 1 of an apparently new AOMEI tool. It's a cleanup app to get rid of leftover/temporary files & registry entries, but nowhere near as aggressive as those from companies like Wise or IObit. License to 11/30/26.

Wise Care 365

Clicking the Get it Now button Firefox tried to download twice & failed while Bitdefender went nuts blocking the download with trojan warnings.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 27

AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro

This is the same version I already had from the prior giveaway. Used the included key to update license to 11/30/26.

AOMEI Cloner Pro

Basically a cut down version of Backupper taking up 1/3 the hard disk space. The bootable USB stick did not work, with a Secure Boot warning when attempted.

AOMEI CyberBackup

AOMEI's enterprise backup solution. Unfortunately no real info is available on the product page.

AOMEI FastRecovery Pro

A newer version than last year's giveaway of AOMEI's file recovery app.

DoYourData Super Eraser

Ashampoo Privacy Inspector 2

Current version is 3 -- you'll get offers in email. Like AOMEI's app this is a less aggressive cleaner, with several options to disable Windows sending telemetry data to Microsoft.

FoneTool Manager Pro

Photo Stamp Remover

FWIW, my post on the GOTD download page with the Aiarty Image Enhancer offer...

I've got thousands of old photos I'm scanning & then editing. Aiarty Image Enhancer 3.1 [current version is 3.5] can improve a photo, but not by much. Truth is however, there's no magic-seeming better alternative. Luminar Neo can make a very noticeable improvement, but when I crank up the settings to achieve that, I have to limit it to just parts of the photo or it actually looks worse. The same can be said for Photoshop's Restoration Neural Filter. Topaz Denoise AI does work, but it's no longer available as a standalone product -- you have to buy the full package -- which I personally don't feel is worth it. The latest AI from Google, Nano Banana Pro, can attempt to improve focus or sharpness, with the caveats that it doesn't always work well, can alter the photo, and you have to upload the photo, which can be a deal breaker if you have very low upload bandwidth, e.g., cable broadband.

That said, Aiarty Image Enhancer does do very well with upscaling or enlarging. The latest AI versions from OpenAI & Google etc. can produce and/or edit larger, high resolution photos, but they're not available everywhere, have usage caps unless you pay to subscribe, and if/when editing, you have that upload gotcha. Older models, and *I think* most on-device models, work with smaller 1024 pixel square windows. If/when editing, say replacing or adding something to a photo, if the size is greater than 1024 square it's simply stretched to fit the rest of the photo. That means visually it's obviously lower resolution than the rest of the photo. Upscaling the entire photo can fix that. And as a bonus, unlike the big names like OpenAI & Google, in my experience Aiarty Image Enhancer doesn't change anything. With Nano Banana for example, a person's face, clothes, hair, & the background, all are subject to alteration.

The GOTD download is 435MB because it includes the MAC setup file -- the PC setup file is 320MB. The program's folder once installed is 930MB. The app can use several different models, which are downloaded the 1st time you use one. The 2 I used were about 80MB each and stored in ProgramData\ Airty\. To my knowledge LM Studio [lmstudio.ai/] is the only interface or way to use AI on your PC/laptop that can use the integrated GPU that's built into many AMD & Intel CPUs. Everything else either uses online servers or a discreet GPU or graphics card, and that includes Aiarty Image Enhancer. And the performance of on-device AI depends on that GPU and the amount of dedicated RAM it has available. As you'd expect, there's a big difference in AI performance between the bottom/cheap & top/expensive graphics cards.

sharewareonsale[.]com/s/free-hasleo-disk-clone-professional-100-discount

Free for 6 days

Hasleo software has had offers on GOTD for years, I think most often their WinToHDD & Win2USB, or at least those are the ones that come to mind. They've got a free image backup app that works, but IMHO it's too limiting in features. The feature list for their cloning app looks decent, though it appears that they've included some some of the ad copy from their backup software on the SOS page. It's a relatively small app that only installs to the program's folder, adding 4 registry keys, one of which is for a service that starts with Windows. The bootable USB stick you create with the app works with UEFI booting & Secure Boot. I don't often have a need for hard disk/partition cloning software, but last time I did I had problems with software like Macrium Reflect that should have done better, so I stuck this on my Windows To Go drive with the other installed software to DX & [hopefully] fix problems.

sharewareonsale[.]com/s/free-aiarty-image-enhancer-with-generative-ai-100-discount

Current version is 3.5, and this offer of v.3.1 is free for the next 7 days. Digiarty has been working on their AI apps, and v.3.1 can now improve image/photo quality, and enlarge that image without changing it the way VideoProc Converter AI did in testing. It works locally, rather than in the cloud, which can make a difference if like me your upload speeds are poor. Some also like protecting their privacy by not uploading their stuff, and you're not contributing to the stress data centers are placing on our environment. That said, it works best if your PC/laptop uses a discreet GPU/graphics card which will do most of the work.

The installed app takes up ~900MB in the program's folder, and adds a folder to ProgramData, where it stores the models the AI uses. The app can use several different models, and downloads a model the 1st time it's used. It downloaded 2 in testing, and each was about 80MB, but some could be smaller or larger. The registry got 2 new keys, one for the app & one for uninstall, but installing the app also installed [likely redundant] Microsoft C/C++ runtimes -- I installed it in a VM, then copied the app to my hard disk to avoid that, as like most people I've probably 4 or 5 copies of the same runtime files already installed.

For all kind of handy things I use an .ahk-script. The part of the script that handles sleep or halt is given below:

; sleep and shutdown
^!s::DllCall("PowrProf\SetSuspendState", "int", 0, "int", 0, "int", 0) ;Ctrl+Alt+s to sleep
^!h::Shutdown, 1 ; Ctrl+Alt+h to halt or shutdown

Since I use this script, I have had no sleep issues.

After sleep, my next most popular script is to add an extended date/time stamp to my mails or documents. Like

in week 47 opgesteld op de E16423 MEDION2024 op donderdag 20 november 2025Q4 om 19:36 uur

The script is:

^!d:: ; Ctrl+Alt+D hotkey
; Get OS info
OSInfo := GetOSInfo()
OSName := OSInfo.Name
OSVersion := OSInfo.Version
OSArch := OSInfo.Architecture
OSEdition := OSInfo.Edition
OSBuild := OSInfo.BuildNumber
sysInfo := GetSystemInfo()
make := sysInfo.Make
model := sysInfo.Model
FormatTime, mijnMaand,, MM
mijnMaand +=0
kwartaal := Floor((mijnMaand+2)/3)
; FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, ' (%OSName% version %OSVersion%) op 'dddd d MMMM yyyy 'Q'kwartaal 'om' HH:mm 'uur '
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,,dddd d MMMM yyyy'Q'%kwartaal% 'om' HH:mm 'uur '
Weeknummer := SubStr(A_YWeek, -1)
SendInput in week %Weeknummer% opgesteld op de %model% %A_ComputerName% op %CurrentDateTime% {Enter}
return

The latter portions at the link you provided [thanks Chris] are how I normally fix sleep issues, checking the device properties in Device Mgr. & the advanced settings in Control Panel\ All Control Panel Items\ Power Options. Tried the command line options out of curiosity, finding powercfg -devicequery wake_armed just stalled FWIW.

In my experience I've found Windows sleep can be a bit arbitrary, or even fickle, depending primarily on the motherboard, which I always set in the BIOS to disable all wake options, but also the mouse, keyboard, and any other attached peripherals. With this current build, this PC will *usually* sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, but not always, so I've taken to activating sleep from the shutdown menu before I step away. And very occasionally it will repeatedly wake immediately after activating sleep, which is usually cured by a restart. The previous motherboard/CPU combo behaved differently with the same copy of Windows, as did the build before that.

If you still want to pursue a fix to your PC's insomnia then you might consider this article: Fix Windows 10/11 Sleep Mode Not Working [Solved].

It describes how to use the powercfg commands to identify programs and processes that keep your PC from entering sleep mode. If you find something, the article also gives the command to over-ride the processes request to keep the PC awake. I've never used it for that but I have used it to discover what caused the PC to awake from sleep. I'd set a system restore point before issuing the over-ride command.

If powercfg doesn't show anything then you could check the Event Viewer logs (Win + R then "eventvwr") for a known 30 minute period where you left the PC idle. There should be some event listed that led to the PC not sleeping.

Like you, I let laptops and desktops sleep, if I do not need them for a few hours, or less. If I do not need them for a longer period, I shut them down and sometimes even unplug the cord. But my old Apple Classic II (more than 30 years old now) needs to be re-connected to the mains for a few days, before it will boot.
My professor - I graduated more than 60 years ago - once asked me to review a paper that described the relation between ageing and operating temperature of transistors: 10 degrees Celsius extra would reduce their life by half.

You're right, monitor burn-in isn't much of an issue today unless you're using an OLED monitor. I do use sleep on our PCs & laptop for several reasons... one is that having the system sleep means the fans aren't running, and when they're not running they aren't pumping more dust into the interior. Even though the air intake is filtered, I still notice a very real difference in how often I have to open the case for cleaning. Another reason is electricity is expensive, and is only going to become more so [thanks AI]. During sleep the PCs only use a trickle of energy. There's also the matter of heat & longevity. Fans do wear out, and while electronic components aren't subject to mechanical wear, they do eventually wear out. The heat generated by Win11 background processes might accelerate that -- my current AMD CPU runs hot, and those background processes when I'm away from the PC can surprisingly lead to peaks near 80 degrees C. And last, I have no idea what or why those background processes can use sustained 100% CPU, but it makes me uncomfortable as I don't trust Microsoft. Since whatever only runs when I'm not using the PC, I prefer it not run anything, i.e., sleep.

Well, I ended up undoing everything I tried! As has been noted, stopping some services from booting can affect the actual running of the software.

I started CCleaner and it seemed to come up but NOT COMPLETELY. Most of the options/actions to take were not there. I undid the msconfig and services.msc steps. Oddly enough, services.msc had switched CCleaner from "disabled" to "manual".

Then everything worked fine. I guess I'll just have to close it from task manager after I run it and check occasionally. If everything is set normally, there are TWO items in Task Manager - CCleaner and CCleaner services as a folder.

At least I won't have to be bothered by the monitor going to sleep just as I sit down. Besides, modern monitors aren't supposed to get burned in like the old ones did and it's just a mild energy savings to put them to sleep.

Purely FWIW...

The service.msc and msconfig steps did NOT work! I booted this morning as normal and it was about a half-hour before I actually started using the PC. The first thing I checked was Task Manager and CCleaner was there!

As I posted earlier, from my quick testing in a VM, there are 4 tasks that start CCleaner whenever anyone logs into Windows. Whether the service is running or not at least the 1st 2 tasks will start CCleaner running in the background. Also, if you start CCleaner with its service not running, you can check Task Mgr. and see that the CCleaner service is still Not running, and that several of the menu items on the left hand side of the CCleaner window are missing. If you want to start Windows and not see CCleaner at all in Task Mgr., you have to disable those scheduled tasks along with having it's service disabled, but then you have to start that service [you can do it in Task Mgr.] before you start CCleaner.

Any other ideas? Or, any GOOD and FREE alternatives to CCleaner?

There are loads and loads of utilities out there, and the amount of stuff they delete varies, from very minimal to what I feel personally is a bit scary. I don't use a cleaner so there's nothing I can recommend personally, but whenever it's given away LOTS of people seem to be fans of Glary Utilities -- neowin[.]net/software/glary-utilities-634038/

Alternatively, you might be able to do everything you want with the already installed Windows Disk Cleanup tool.

In my experience it *often* *partially* works for Windows Update leftovers -- after running disk cleanup, running dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup at the command prompt running as admin most always finds and removes more. It will usually remove crash dumps, but is 50/50 when it comes to old driver versions after a driver update. Microsoft, I believe out of their China offices, provides PC Manager in Windows Store. It can be buggy -- found it partially starting with Windows in a couple of copies of Windows -- and it doesn't remove nearly as much as cleaners from Glary & such, but it does remove a lot from the temp folders and browser caches.

There might be another service that needs to be set to manual start. You could try Autoruns from Sysinternals. It includes columns for Publisher and Installation Path which makes it easier to find services related to a particular program. If you find something else from CCleaner or Piriform just uncheck the box or open "services.msc", locate the particular service, and set to manual start.

Alternatively, you might be able to do everything you want with the already installed Windows Disk Cleanup tool. Here's a link to a tutorial from ElevenForm: Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 11. I don't know if the tool does more than it once did or if the presentation is just more confusing such that it now requires a tutorial.

The service.msc and msconfig steps did NOT work! I booted this morning as normal and it was about a half-hour before I actually started using the PC. The first thing I checked was Task Manager and CCleaner was there!

I clicked to "end task" and I'll leave my other changes but I'm still stuck with this. I don't like playing with the registry. That's just the way I am.

Any other ideas? Or, any GOOD and FREE alternatives to CCleaner? They like Micro$oft's method -- dig in where you can and don't let the customer block you!

In case it helps at all, monitored installation & 1st run/scan in my Win11 Pro 25H2 VBox VM...

In addition to the program's main folder in Program Files\, a 2nd folder is created in Program Files\ Common Files\ Piriform\, a third in ProgramData\, and a fourth in Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Roaming\. I recorded 3 new kays in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, a new key for uninstall, the app's key in \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\, a new class key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ WOW6432Node\, a new key in \HKEY_USERS\ .DEFAULT\, and the key for the new service in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ CCleaner7\.

The registry run keys are all clear as are the 2 Start Menu auto-start folders. CCleaner auto-starts the service in its properties, and uses 4 scheduled tasks that run at every Windows log-in: CCleaner 7 - Skip UAC - S-1-5-21-54161338-4068258897-2220097527-1001, CCleaner 7 - S-1-5-21-54161338-4068258897-2220097527-1001, CCleaner 7 BugReport, CCleaner 7 Update.

Disabling all 4 services had an unexpected effect after Win11 restart -- the Windows Security icon went missing in the notification area, though opening the security window via Settings everything looked good. I tried restarting 4 times in case it was an anomaly. Setting the CCleaner service to manual start in its properties in Services, then restarting got the security icon back, but starting CCleaner did Not start the service -- it had to be manually started, and then CCleaner appeared to work normally.

I did finally find the task scheduler but there was no Piriform folder there as described and what I did find of CCleaner didn't have the "disable" option I was told to find.

In Win11 I usually pin the Windows Tools in the Start Menu to the sort of front page of the Start Menu -- I use it often. It includes the link to fire up Task Scheduler. When I opened Task Scheduler the very first entry was the 1st CCleaner task I listed. Expanding the tree of tasks on the left, the bottom folder was Piriform, and contained the other 3 tasks.

Thanks!

I did BOTH. It still showed the icon on the taskbar notification area (which I then turned off). When I checked both services.msc and msconfig, CCleaner shows as disabled. I'll have to wait and see if it solves the monitor sleeping problem. It probably won't be until this evening that it will have a chance to go to sleep (we turn it off when we go out and it's grocery day).

All the searches yesterday said to look for Piriform and I still can't find that.

It's at least a start. I did open the product to change the option on the task icon. Even with it disabled in both places on startup, the icon showed. After turning off the icon, I closed the program, which of course, left it running in the task manager. I checked both system service checkes and they had NOT been changed from disabled. I stopped it in the task manager.

Now the only question, which I'll find the answer later, is if just the leftover of usage rather than startup affects the monitor going to sleep.