<<It will also delete .log files which contain histories
of almost everything (often overlooked)>>

Be careful about deleting .log files.  Some programs, though unusual, 
retain their uninstall info in .log files.

After trying a new "Cleanup" tool recently, I found that I was later unable 
to uninstall a couple of programs, as their uninstall info had gone. This 
can render your "Add/Remove Programs" ineffective in such cases.

Unless you have huge number of .log files, I wouldn't worry too much about 
cleaning them up. Being essentially text files, they don't take up much space.

If I wanted to remove remaining traces of deleted info without 
reformatting, I'd simply write some large files to the hard drive, so that 
more space is taken up than existed BEFORE you deleted the sensitive 
info.  Fill up the hard drive if you must. Then delete all the new files. 
This will effectively overwrite the previous files, and should defeat all 
but the most sophisticated (and very expensive) recovery methods.

If you're really paranoiac about it, repeat the exercise several times.

We're often told that organisations such as the CIA and FBI have ways and 
means of recovering data off any hard drive that hasn't been totally 
destroyed by nuclear blast or whatever.

Personally, I have my doubts about this, and wonder how apocryphal this 
scenario is.  I've never read of any instance where this has actually 
occurred. Maybe someone can enlighten us with some confirmed hard facts 
(not just rumours) about whether this has actually happened in an extreme case.

Don Penlington
 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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