Acronis POWER UTILITIES User Manual

Acronis

PowerUtilities

User’s Guide

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2004

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2004. All rights reserved.
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DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED «AS IS» AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY
IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE
EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES .......................................................5

1.1 ABOUT ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES................................................. 5

1.2 ABOUT THE ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES USER’S GUIDE .................6

1.3 SOFTWARE USAGE CONDITIONS .....................................................7

1.4 TECHNICAL SUPPORT ......................................................................7

CHAPTER 2. INSTALLING AND STARTING TO WOR K WITH ACRONIS

POWERUTILITIES................................................................................................8

2.1 ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES SYSTEM PACKAGE............................... 8

2.2 HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS ................................8

2.3 INSTALLING ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES COMPONENTS ................. 8

2.4 RECOVERING ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES COMPONENTS................ 8

2.5 REMOVING ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES COMPONENTS...................9

2.6 ACRONIS POWERUTILITIES SUITE INTERFACE................................ 9

2.7 RUNNING A SUITE COMPONENT......................................................9

CHAPTER 3. CLEANING USER ACTIVITY TRACES FROM A COMPUTER..... 10

3.1 SOFTWARE LOGICAL ORGANIZATION: SECTIONS ......................... 10

3.1.1 COMPLEX PC CLEAN-UP...........................................................................11

3.1.2 CLEANING SEPARATE SYSTEM COMPONENTS...........................................11

3.2 EXECUTING PC CLEAN-UP MANUALLY ........................................ 12

3.3 CLEAN-UP SETTINGS ..................................................................... 12

3.3.1 CLEAN-UP SETTINGS.................................................................................12

3.3.2 CLEAN-UP SETTINGS EDITOR....................................................................12

3.3.3 SETTING PC COMPONENT CLEAN-UP WITH THE EDITOR...........................12

3.4 SEPARATE COMPONENTS CLEAN-UP SETTINGS ............................ 14

3.4.1 CLEAN-UP SETTINGS OF COMPONENTS RELATED TO WORKING ON THE INTERNET

.................................................................................................................14

3.4.2 SYSTEM COMPONENT CLEAN-UP SETTINGS..............................................16

3.5 EXECUTING SCHEDULED PC CLEAN-UP........................................ 20

3.5.1 INVOKING THE SCHEDULER.........................................................................21

3.5.2 SCHEDULER SETTINGS..............................................................................21

3.6 RENAMING CLEAN-UP VARIANTS ................................................. 22

3.7 DATA CLEAN-UP ALGORITHMS.....................................................22

3.8 COMPLEX PC CLEAN-UP ...............................................................23

3.8.1 ENTIRE PC CLEAN-UP...............................................................................23

3.8.2 SYSTEM CLEAN-UP...................................................................................24

3.8.3 INTERNET CLEAN-UP ................................................................................24

3.9 A FAST CLEANUP OF SEPARATE SYSTEM COMPONENTS .............. 25

CHAPTER 4. MIGRATING DATA TO A NEW HARD DISK ..............................26

4.1 PREPARING FOR MIGRATION......................................................... 26

4.2 HARD DISK PARTITIONS AND FILE SYSTEMS................................ 26

4.3 INSTALLING A HARD DISK ON YOUR COMPUTER ......................... 27

4.4 BIOS SET-UP ................................................................................. 27

4.5 STARTING WORK WITH ACRONIS MIGRATEEASY ........................ 28

4.6 MIGRATION SCENARIOS ................................................................ 29

4.6.1 AUTO UPGRADE........................................................................................29

4.6.2 MANUAL UPGRADE ..................................................................................29

4.7 AUTO UPGRADE ............................................................................ 30

4.8 SAFETY.......................................................................................... 34

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4.9 MANUAL UPGRADE.......................................................................35

CHAPTER 5. HARD DISK ERROR CORRECTION ...........................................36

5.1 BEGINNING TO WORK WITH THE PROGRAM ACRONIS DISKEDITOR36

5.2 MAIN WINDOW OF THE PROGRAM ................................................ 37

5.3 WORKING IN MULT-IWINDOWS MODE..........................................38

5.4 EDIT HARD DISKS..........................................................................40

5.5 WRITE BLOCK TO A FILE AND READ FROM A FILE........................42

5.6 VIEW.............................................................................................. 43

5.7 SEARCH ......................................................................................... 44

5.8 WORKING WITH DIFFERENT ENCODINGS......................................45

5.9 OTHER ACRONIS DISKEDITOR CAPABILITIES ............................... 46

CHAPTER 6. DISK DATA WIPING ..................................................................47

6.1 CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ON HARD DISKS: STORAGE AND ACCESS

.......................................................................................................47

6.1.1 CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION: DESTRUCTION..........................................47

6.1.2 DATA DELETION BY MEANS OF AN OPERATING SYSTEMS........................48

6.1.3 GUARANTEED DESTRUCTION OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION: STANDARDS

.................................................................................................................49

6.2 WORKING WITH ACRONIS DRIVECLEANSER SOFTWARE..............50

6.2.1 RESULTS OF THE WIPING SCRIPT EXECUTION...........................................55

6.3 CREATING CUSTOM ALGORITHMS ................................................ 56

APPENDIX A. HARD DISK WIPING ALGORITHMS..........................................57

A.1 INFORMATION WIPING ALGORITHMS FUNCTIONING PRINCIPLES.57
A.2 ALGORITHMS USED BY ACRONIS PRIVACYEXPERT AND

DRIVECLEANSER ..................................................................................... 58

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Acronis PowerUtilities

1.1 About Acronis PowerUtilities

Acronis PowerUtilities, the long-anticipated utilities suite from the technology
leader Acronis, includes four of the most popular system utilities available in
one box:

• Acronis PrivacyExpert, the powerful privacy utility that keeps
computing and surfing history completely private.

• Acronis MigrateEasy, the preeminent hard disk drive migration tool
available today.

• Acronis DiskEditor, the technically advanced tool designed to edit
your hard disk and its partition data manually.

• Acronis DriveCleanser, the proven solution to securely obliterate hard
disks clean.

Compute and Surf Withou t a Trace!

Acronis PrivacyExpert provides you with complete confidentiality while
working with a stand-alone or networked personal computer (PC). The
confidentiality that Acronis PrivacyExpert delivers allows you to clean-up
trace data and Windows by removing any evidence of your work or Internet
activities.

Unlike other software Acronis PrivacyExpert also increases PC performance
by cleaning out temporary files.

Acronis PrivacyExpert is PC performance improvement as a result of hard
disk cleanup from numerous temporary files.

Upgrade Your Har d Disk Drive in M inutes!

It’s finally time – you’ve put it off as long as possible, but it’s now time to
upgrade to a new larger hard disk drive. And if you’re like most, you’re not
excited. You think you’re in for a large project spanning several days of
tedious work. Luckily for you, there’s Acronis MigrateEasy, the award-winning
solution that migrates all your computer data and system files to a new hard
disk drive in minutes, while keeping all operating systems and applications
fully functional. Why take days upgrading, when you can use Acronis
MigrateEasy and be finished in minutes?

With Acronis MigrateEasy, you don’t have to be a computer scientist to
upgrade to a new hard disk drive. Simply make a few choices when
prompted, and Acronis MigrateEasy will take care of everything

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5

automatically. It will even show you a preview of the migration can be
completely assured of file and system transfer. Within minutes, your data,
including applications and operating systems, will be safely on your new
large hard disk drive and ready to go!

Hard Disk Problem? Not Any More

Quite often problems can arise with hard disk drives that cannot be solved
without a technically advanced disk editor. Such problems includ e: back-up,
copying, and/or recover important data areas of a hard drive; search and/or
extraction of information that was removed by accident or lost due to
different soft- and hardware failures or virus attack. Acronis DiskEditor, with
booting up from a diskette, works even if your operating system does not.

Securely Obliterate Your Hard Disks

Getting rid of an old PC, upgrading to a new hard drive, returning a leased
computer, or redeploying a PC within your company? It is truly imperative to
completely destroy all data from the old hard disk.

Your confidential data should not only be safeguarded according to the strict
rules, but it should also be reliably and completely destroyed when needed.
You think you have deleted all the financial, corporate, and personal files,
and even formatted and deleted hard disk partitions – but are they really
gone from the drive? The answer is NO!

Acronis DriveCleanser guarantees the complete destruction of data on
selected partitions and/or entire disks with extremely simple Windows XP­style interface and straight-forward actions.

1.2 About the Acronis PowerUtilities User’s Guide

This Guide briefly describes the main features of Acronis PowerUtilities suite
components, including the following chapters:

• Chapter 2 «Installing and Starting to Work with Acronis
PowerUtilities» - installing, recovering and removing various suite
components;

• Chapter 3 «Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer» -
working with Acronis PrivacyExpert: setting up and executing variants
of complex PC and system cleanup;

• Chapter 4 «Migrating Data to a New Hard Disk» - working with
Acronis MigrateEasy: preparing a hard disk for installation and
automatic migration of the complete data set, including operating
system, applications, documents, etc.;

• Chapter 5 «Hard Disk Error Correction» - working with Acronis
DiskEditor: low-level access to hard disk sectors, searching disk for

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Chapter 1 : Acronis PowerUtilities

data, operating with sector byte blocks, browsing and editing the
Master Boot Record and boot sectors, File Allocation Table;

• Chapter 6 «Disk Data Wiping» - working with Acronis DriveCleanser:
guaranteed wiping of confidential data on an obsolete or unused disk,
data wiping algorithms;

• Appendix A. «Hard Disk Wiping Algorithms» - the necessity of strict
hard disk data wiping algorithms and the detailed description of
algorithms integrated into Acronis PrivacyExpert and Acronis
DriveCleanser.

1.3 Software Usage Conditions

The conditions of Acronis PowerUtilities software usage are described in the
«License agreement», included in this package. The supplied registration
card is the confirmation of your legal purchase and usage of Acronis
PowerUtilities software. Each registration card has its own unique registration
number.

Based on current legislation the «License agreement» is considered a
contract between a user and a software manufacturer. This contract has th e
legal effect and its violation may entail a court examination.

Illegal use and distribution of software will be prosecuted.

1.4 Technical Support

Users of legally purchased and registered copies of Acronis PowerUtilities
receive free technical support from the Acronis Inc. In case you have
problems with installation or using the software, that cannot be solved with
this guide or readme, please e-mail the technical support. You will also need
to send us you the registration number for Acronis PowerUtilities. This
number is written on a registration card, supplied with this package.

Support URL:
E-mail: [e-mail]

http://www.acronis.com/support/

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Chapter 2. Installing and Starting to Work
with Acronis PowerUtilities

2.1 Acronis PowerUtilities System Package

Acronis PowerUtilities system package includes:

• an installation disc,

• this guide,

• license agreement,

• registration card,

• advertising materials.

2.2 Hardware and Software Requirements

To take a full advantage of Acronis PowerUtilities one should have:

• a PC-compatible computer with a Pentium CPU or similar,

• 32 MB RAM,

• VGA monitor,

• a mouse (recommended),

• free disk space for archive files.

2.3 Installing Acronis PowerUtilities Components

To install Acronis PowerUtilities suite component, please, insert the CD-ROM
into the drive, select the needed component and run the installer. Please,
carefully follow all the instructions.

Having answered Acronis PowerUtilities component installation wizard
questions, you will be prompted to create a bootable CD-R/W or diskettes (if
you purchased Acronis PowerUtilities on a bootable CD, you can skip this
step).

2.4 Recovering Acronis PowerUtilities Components

8

If a component of Acronis PowerUtilities failed to install or run, please,
execute the installation program again. The software will determine that the

Chapter 2 :

Installing and Starting to Work with Acronis PowerUtiliti es

component has already been installed to your PC and prompt y ou to recover
(update) or completely remove it from the disk.

In the component installation wizard select Recover/update Acronis
<component> and click Next. All necessary files will be copied to your hard
disk again to properly restore software.

2.5 Removing Acronis PowerUtilities Components

To remove a component select Acronis Æ <component> Æ Remove
<component> from the Programs menu. You will see a prompt to confirm

removal of the software from your PC hard disk.
Click Yes to confirm removal. The selected component of Acronis

PowerUtilities suite will be completely removed from the PC hard disk.

2.6 Acronis PowerUtilities Suite Interface

The user interface of Acronis PowerUtilities suite features standard Windows
graphical user interface (GUI) elements. Please pay close attention to settin g
and executing clean-up variants.

2.7 Running a Suite Component

To run a suite component select Programs Æ Acronis Æ <componen t> from
the Start menu. For example, select Programs Æ Acronis Æ Acronis
PrivacyExpert to run Acronis PrivacyExpert.

In some cases you will be prompted to load a component from a bootable
diskette or CD-R/W, that was created during the component installation.

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Chapter 3. Cleaning User Activity Traces
From a Computer

Clean-up of user PC activity traces is performed by Acronis PrivacyExpert, a
part of Acronis PowerUtilities suite.

Acronis Priv acyE xper t is controlled from the main window. It is shown on the
screen after selecting Acronis Æ PrivacyExpert Æ PrivacyExpert from the
Programs menu. The Acronis Priv acyExp ert main window is a Windows dialog
box split into two parts:

• The right part contains grouped lists of main PC cleanup variants
user may execute with Acronis PrivacyExpert;

• The left part of the window, or sidebar, is an element, that was
introduced in the Windows XP. It contains grouped actions that can
be performed on objects in the right part of the window.

Main window Acronis PrivacyExpert

Clean-up variants are executed, set, scheduled, and renamed with the help
of corresponding items of the main menu, toolbar, sidebar, and context
menus.

3.1 Software Logical Organization: Sections

Logically Acronis PrivacyExpert consists of several parts, each enabling the
user to perform (1) specific variants of complex PC clean-up from PC activity
evidence or (2) clean-up separate system components.

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Chapter 3 :

Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer

j

g

3.1.1 Complex PC Clean-up

In the One Click Clean-up section, shown by default in the right part of the
Acronis PrivacyExpert main window, the user has access to icons of three

pre-defined complex PC clean-up.
If you need to perform:

1. entire PC clean-up, including Windows system section and sections related
to working on the Internet, execute Entire PC Clean-up;

2. clean-up of sections related to working on the Internet only, execute Internet
Clean-up;

3. Windows system section and user files/folders cleanup, execute System
Cleanup.

Attention! Described clean-up variants are fully set-up by default and ready for
immediate work once Acronis PrivacyExpert is installed. They were specifically created
for the ma
complex settin
mouse!

ority of users to take advantage of them without understanding all the

details. Any of these variants can be executed by a click of the

3.1.2 Cleaning Separate System Components

Internet Components and System Components sections allow you to

perform a quick clean-up of separate system components once you have
taken specific actions on your PC.

For example, you need to clean-up the browser cache from garbage after
visiting a dubious content site and remove its URL from the list of visited
sites, etc. This will not take much time compare to a full, complex clean-up.

If you need to perform:

1. a quick clean-up of only separate components of Windows system
sections and separate user files/folders, execute one of the clean-up
variants from the Components section;

2. a quick clean-up of only separate Windows components, related to
working on the Internet, execute a variant from the Internet
Components section.

Separate components clean-up takes less time than complex cleanup of
entire Windows sections.

All PC clean-up variants as well as separate components cleanup are
executed manually or by schedule and are set universally (see 3.2
«Executing PC Clean-up Manually», 3.5 «Executing Scheduled PC Clean-up»,

3.3 «Clean-up Settings») and differ only by the number of settings..

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3.2 Executing PC Clean-up Manually

There are three ways of manually executing complex PC and component
clean-up.

PC or separate component clean-up, previ ously selected from the right part
of the Acronis PrivacyExpert main window, can be executed by:

1. mouse-clicking Start Now! in the Acronis PrivacyExpert main window
sidebar;

2. selecting Clean-up Æ Start Now! from the main menu;

3. selecting Start Now! from the task context menu.

If you are unable to see the clean-u p variant or components to clean in the
workspace, please scroll down to make it visible.

3.3 Clean-up Settings

3.3.1 Clean-up Settings

By changing clean-up settings, you can set Acronis PrivacyExpert for your
personal needs. For example: you can select an algorithm of guaranteed
data destruction that suits you by speed and reliability, enter the type of
temporary files to clean, directly select browser used, disable separate
component clean-up, etc. This will enable Acronis PrivacyExpert to clean your
PC at maximum speed and performance.

Settings are described below.

3.3.2 Clean-up Settings Editor

Having selected a clean-up variant by mouse-clicking from the right part of
the Acronis PrivacyExpert main window, and then Properties from the sidebar
Edit list, you invoke the settings editor. You can also do this by selecting a
clean-up variant and Clean-up Æ Properties from the main menu. Finally, the
settings editor can be invoked from the context menu of a clean-up variant
by selecting Properties.

3.3.3 Setting PC Component Clean-up with the Editor

Below you can see the opened settings editor featuring two groups of
components to clean that belong to the Entire PC Clean-up. There ar e two
of such groups:

12

• Internet Clean-up – this group includes clean-up of sections related to

working in the Internet,

Chapter 3 : Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer

• System Clean-up – this group includes Windows system section and

user files/folders clean-up.

If you need to set up component clean-up:

1. select the component from the left part of the editor and check the

Enable <component name> box;

The description of a component to clean

2. set component clean-up; for this consecutively select each component
clean-up setting or set-up as necessary (selecting/entering clean-up
algorithm, file type, Internet browser, etc.);

«Files» setting

3. to save your settings click Apply. To discard changes click Cancel.

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If you need to restore Acronis PrivacyExpert default clean-up settings:

1. select the component tree root – Settings;

2. in the right part of the editor click

Restoring Acronis PrivacyExpert default settings

Restore Defaults.

3.4 Separate Components Clean-up Settings

Having selected a specific component to clean fr om the editor, you open the
list of its clean-up settings.

Each component to clean has several settings in Acronis PrivacyExpert (from 1 to
3 depending on a component).

Below are common settings for a number of components.

3.4.1 Clean-up Settings of Components Related to Working on the Internet

«Internet Browsers» and «Address» settings are common for components
related to working on the Internet.

«Internet Browsers» Setting

Acronis PrivacyExpert automatically finds all supported browsers installed on
your PC and by default cleans structures of all browsers rela ted to worki ng in
the Internet.

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Chapter 3 : Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer

If you have Internet Explorer installed, the structures cleaned belong to the
currently logged on user.

«Internet Browsers» setting

Netscape Navigator and Mozilla support the so-called personal profiles.
Without additional settings Acronis PrivacyExpert cleans either the «default
profile» (if it is the only one existing), or the profile of a currently logged on
user.

If you need to clean-up only one browser:

1. Set the checkbox near its name only (for example, Internet Explorer),
unchecking all other boxes;

2. If you use a version of Netscape Navigator (or Mozilla), you should
additionally select a personal profile (by clicking Profiles… link).

«Address» Setting

The «Address» setting is meant for cleaning up Internet cache and the last
visited pages list. («Address» setting has only two system components to
clean: Internet Cache, Last Visited Pages.)

You can also enter any full or partial Internet addresses separated by a
semicolon as a value of the «Address» setting, for example:

*worldsoccer.com; *formula1.com;
and so on. All files downloaded from sites fully or partially corresponding to

at least one of the addresses entered will be removed.

Attention! The length of a search string with full or partial Internet addresses are
almost infinite! So you may enter any number of addresses like *worldsoccer.com or
*formula1.com separated by semicolon.

Acronis PowerUtilities

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If you need to:

1. clean-up Internet cache (last visited pages list) from all files (lists,

elements), downloaded from specific Internet address (site), enter
addresses or their parts separated by semicolon, for example like:

*cnn*;*formula1*
As a result all files downloaded from

will be deleted.

2. clean-up Internet cache from only specific file types downloaded from
specific Internet address (site), enter addresses separated b y semicolon,
for example like:

*cnn*.jpg;*cnn*.gif;*formula1*.jpg;*formula1*.gif
As a result only *.jpg, *.gif files will be deleted, and, for example, *.html

files will remain in cache.

Entering the Internet address es list, you can browse files (visited pages)
selected according to the list. To do this click

wi nd ow w it h se le ct ed a d dr ess e s. They will be deleted during at the selected
component clean-up.

3.4.2 System Component Clean-up Settings

«Data Destruction Algorithm» and «Files» settings are common for system
component cleanup.

«Data destruction algorithm» Setting

www.cnn.com, www.formula1.com

Show URLs. You will se e the

16

Having selected «Data Destruction Algorithm» setting you can change the
security level provided by PC clean-up and clean-up speed.

For detailed information about data destruction algorithms see 3.7 «Data
Clean-up Algorithms» and Appendix A. «Hard Disk Wiping Algorithms».

The highest level security algorithms are always very slow, and vice versa,
the quickest algorithms provide less reliability and security.

Chapter 3 : Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer

Having mouse-clicked a setting name, you will see its available element in
the right part of the editor – the selection of data destruction algorithms.

Selecting a data destruction algorithm

Mouse-clicking the drop-down list in the right part of the editor, you will see
all data destruction algorithms available in Acronis PrivacyExpert.

If you need to ensure:

1. the top security for wiping PC activity evidence, select Peter Gutmann’s
algorithm (35 data destruction cycles), but remember that it’s very slow;

2. the medium level of security at an average speed of clean-up, select VSITR
or Bruce Schneier’s algorithm (7 data destruction cycles);

3. the fast PC clean-up, with less security in mind, select any of 1-3-pass
algorithms (see A.2 «Algorithms Used by Acronis PrivacyExpert and »).

«Files» Setting

The «Files» setting is meant to provide temporary file names to clean with
Acronis PrivacyExpert (from Windows Recycle Bin and from system and user
folders) and is actually a search string.

In the Windows operating system, a search string might represent a full or
partial file name. A search string may contain any alphanumeric symbols,
including comma, * and ? symbols, and can have values similar to the
following :

• *.* – to delete all files from the Recycle Bin – with any file names

and extensions;

• *.doc – to delete files with specific extension – Microsoft document

files in this case;

Acronis PowerUtilities

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• read*.* – to delete all files with any extensions, and names beginning

with «read»;

• read?.* – to delete all files having 5-letter names and any extensions,

names beginning with «read», the fifth letter is random.

For example, the last search string will result in removal of read1.txt,
ready.doc files, but readyness.txt will remain since it has a longer pre-fix
name (excluding the extension).

You can enter several different search strings separated by semicolon, for
example:

*.bak; *.tmp; *.~~~;
and so on. All files with names corresponding to at least one of the search

strings will be deleted.

Attention! The length of a search string with full or partial names is almost infinite!
You may enter any number of filenames or their parts like *.tmp, read?.* separated
by semicolon.

The «Files» setting has four system components to clean: Recycle Bin,
Temporary Files, Custom Folders/Files, and Find Files List.

«Files» setting

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Chapter 3 : Cleaning User Activity Traces From a Computer