The Advanced Shred tool allows you to select items you wish to remove and is similar to that of a paper shredder; however, it is even more effective than a paper shredder.

You can choose a shred level that performs more than one overwrite; this is equivalent to shredding a piece of paper and then taking the shredded pieces and running them through the shredder repeatedly. There is no way to recover shredded items. We recommend that you verify the items you have selected to shred are unwanted files before proceeding.

 

Adding Files

You can add one or more files to the shred list.

To add files to the shred list, do one the following:

• Drag-and-drop files from Windows Explorer.
• Click the Add... button and choose one of the following:
• • Add Files to select the files you want to add, and click Open.
  • Add All Recycle Bin Files to add the entire contents of the Recycle Bin.

To remove items from the shred list:

1. Select the items to remove.
2. Click the Clear... button.
3. Choose Clear Selected Files from the List to remove the selected file, or choose Clear All Files from the List to reset the list.

Shred Levels

 

There are three levels to choose from: Quick, Safe, and Thorough as described in the table below.

Shred Level	Security	Description
Quick	Minimum	The data is overwritten with a single random pass and cannot, without the use of sophisticated restoration equipment, be recovered.
Safe	Medium	The data is overwritten in three passes according to DoD 5220-22M specifications (the standard for permanent erasure of digital information as set by the U.S. Department of Defense). This is the recommended setting as it meets security requirements without over-extending system resources.
Thorough	High	The data is overwritten according to DoD 5220-22M specifications (the standard set by the U.S. Department of Defense) but includes an extra four passes for a total of seven. This is very secure but will take more time especially when shredding many files at once.

Select a Shred level by doing the following:

1. From the Main window, click the Advanced Shred button.
2. Click the radio button next to the Shred level of your choice.

Shredding Items

To shred the files, do the following:

1. Click the Shred button.
2. Click Yes in the confirmation box.

Some files cannot be shredded including:

• Files that are open and in use or locked by another application.
• Files on a CD.
• Files residing on a network drive that you do not have write permissions to.

When coming across files that cannot be shredded, ParetoLogic Privacy Controls displays a message and the items are left in the Shred list for you to examine.

Confirmation dialogs

There are certain files that are critical to the functioning of your computer. To protect these files ParetoLogic Privacy Controls offers a confirmation dialog when you attempt to shred them. For example, when you add files stored in a system folder, a confirmation appears.

Items that will result in a confirmation dialog when selected for shredding include:

 

Type:	Location:
appdata	XP: %USERPROFILE%\Application Data Vista: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming
commonappdata	XP: %ALLUSERSPROFILE% Vista: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%
commonprogramfiles	%ProgramFiles%\Common Files
desktop	%USERPROFILE%\Desktop
localappdata	XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data Vista: %LOCALAPPDATA%
mydocuments	XP: %USERPROFILE%\My Documents Vista: %USERPROFILE%\Documents
programfiles	%ProgramFiles%
programfiles (x86)	%ProgramFiles% *this is the 32-bit program folder on a 64-bit OS
userprofile	%USERPROFILE%
windir	The windows install directory.
System32	%windir%\System32
System32Wow64	%windir%\System32WoW64
Drive Roots	C:\, D:\, etc.

 

 

Once you have verified that the file is not required by the operating system, you can choose to shred it.

To accept the confirmation and continue with the shred process, do the following:

1. Type Yes in the text box.
2. Click OK.
3. Click the Shred button.