3rd party utilities flawed in NTSF?

[Oldkid]

Hi all--That's what a fella who seemed pretty knowledgeable told me. I had told him I'd had problems with McAfee's QuickClean 3 demo and that I had this idea that it had something to do with NTSF/NT incompatabilty/conflict. He said there are no utilities that work correctly with NTSF/XP. "None?" I asked. I asked if he meant just cleaners but he said all 3rd party utilities have problems with NTSF-- even if they say they're written for XP they're just a bigheadache.

I'm a newbie to computers but have been studying them hard (mostly thru the net--self-teaching) since the beginning of the year. This is my first post here & I think it's the best forum I've seen so far for someone like me.

So I'm always asking questions of anyone that will talk to me, but I don't know how much I can trust the information I get. So is this guy full of it or is there something to what he says. I'm interested in everyone's opinion, knowledge & experience.

I may have misspoken when I said NTSF tho--here's what got this subject started in my head. Having problems with QC3 I looked around McAfee's support site & found a forum thread that said that QC3 could not erase a hard drive of an NT-based OS. This upset the guy who started the thread because he'd bought the SW specifically for its erasing capabilities & McAfee didn't mention the NT limitations on the box. But it got me to thinking that maybe my problems with the SW was because I was running it on an NT-based OS (XP). And I've seen some other utilities that have problems with XP but aren't very up front about it. So maybe I should be asking about compatibility issues with an NT-based OS.

The thing is, I've had 3 programs I've had to uninstall because of problems they caused on my system. Used Sysem Restore to get rid of Filemon & Infoangel. Infoangel conflicted with QC3, but I don't know why Filemon caused blue screen errors. I know there could be any number of reasons for these problems. But I got to thinking maybe programmers are having problems writing to NT-based systems. Some are better at it than others & some are claiming compatability with XP when there are still problems with it. Or maybe it comes down to this:

When a SW author claims compatability with XP, it has been developed & tested on a FAT32 formatted system & deemed ready for release, but hasn't been tested on an NTSF formatted XP OS or is buggy but released anyway because it works fine with FAT32.

Is this possible?

This sounds stupid to me now that I've written it out, you can tell I don't know much about the tech world, but there it is. I'm open to any comments.

I'd like to keep junk files off this PC as preventative maintenance but I'm not experienced enough to know what's safe to delete from my temp folder, & I'd like a program to keep the cookies I need to access sites like this one. Don't want to reregister everywhere. So is there a cleaner out there that is for sure compatible with XP/NTSF?

Thanks guys & gals.

[andyms18a]

hi old kid welcom to the forums.
i run winxp pro on a ntfs file systom and use system mechanic from this site to keep my pc junk free http://www.iolo.com/sm/ the person who said that no utilities
work with ntfs is full of sh** there ara a large no of programs out on the internet some free that do a exerlent job of keeping the computer runing well with a ntfs hdd a lot of the older progs just need updates to work and as moor and moor people switch to the ntfs file system the moor programs will be writen for it my addvice is make shore you have a backup of your data a good anti virus prog and use the xp restor option to make restor points when ever you install a prog and have fun with and moor fun with out your computer

[bailey]

I will not run anything that has the name Mcaffee on it

[andyms18a]

Originally posted by bailey I will not run anything that has the name Mcaffee on it

and dont forget norton the best destroyer of computers in the world

[Blakhart]

All the foregoing I agree with. I will use a 3rd party app for defrag only once, then after that use the standard xp defrag.
As far as antivirals go, I use FixIt Utilities by On Track.
Unlike other utes, it will not destroy your system out of revenge if you delete it. Although I admire that concept... being Italian and all. It's a vendetta thing.

[Oldkid]

Hey,
Thanks for the welcome andyms18a. Much appreciate.

I've been trying to follow your advice andy & it's funny, before posting I had just about made up my mind to try System Mechanic until I read some reviews that said it's not suited to the inexperienced. Then I talked to that guy & asked him specifically about System Mechanic & he said it wouldn't work with NTSF. But the last straw was--looking around for resellers with a better price--found the prog on McAfee's download page!

Eh bailey?

Anyway, regarding the NTSF question, check out this page:
http://www.backtec.com/ers2000.htm

So here's one utility that won't work on NTSF. If you click the link "Compare NTFS and FAT/FAT32 Partition" you'll see this is by choice--the guys like FAT better. Maybe this is more germane to the FAQ thread debating FAT32 vs NTSF. But it does give some credence to the guys claim--I just don't believe the "no" "none" part. And you know there are some people out there that would DL a ute like that without checking it out first & then wonder why they're having headaches. So anybody know of any other utes that don't work on NTSF, whether by choice or not?

I may go with SysMech anyway, but right now I'd like to find a small prog to manage/clean cookies that's not going to cause headaches. If I go thru Internet Options to "delete cookies" it's going to wipe'em all out, right? I'd like to keep some. The native defragger & disk cleanup seem adequate for me, but I'd like 3rd party help with the other stuff.

Thanks for the info & help.

[discerzz]

go to www. google.com search for scrub xp it works quite well and lets you keep some cookies,if you are using xp

[discerzz]

oops! www.google.com lol