Why Perform a Clean Installation of cTrader
You may have encountered a random issue while trying to use cTrader in the past. Those issues could be an exception while launching or running the application or a failure to launch an update after installing it. These things can happen and it’s typically not a software issue such as a bug, but rather some unique circumstance that happens on your machine. Sometimes these issues can affect literally one or two people. This means for a software developer to fix it on their side (even if they can) is far from cost-effective. If you have ever come into contact with Spotware in their community or via email, the common remedy for most abnormal issues is to do a clean installation.
Will a Clean Installation Help?
Why will performing a clean installation of cTrader help you might be wondering. It’s the age-old concept that has been around since the dawn of computers. Try turning it off and on again. For some reason which is still a mystery to most humans, this does actually work (a lot of the time). While it may seem like this probably wouldn’t help and that Spotware is just trying to deflect your issue. This is not the case. Removing all data about cTrader and reinstalling it really can help.
Why Does a Clean Installation help?
The reason is that cTrader downloads a lot of data behind the scenes and caches it on your hard drive. This is done to avoid using the RAM. This method improves the speed and performance of the trading platform. For example, chart data, this is downloaded and stored locally. When you need to open the second chart of a symbol you already have open or you are scrolling backwards and forwards, you are using the same chart data multiple times. You do not need to download it again and again because it can be taken from the cache. Since other applications also use this method and save files in the same place, they can become corrupt.
Because there are so many tiny files saved on your computer by cTrader, they can become corrupt by interference from other applications on your computer, even other versions of cTrader from different brokers. Or one of those thousands of files is not compatible with a new version of cTrader, but the application still tries to use it.
These files don’t just save chart data, but many other things, such as settings, which can become obsolete over time. Whether you have an issue with cTrader or not, it’s a good idea to perform a clean installation from time to time. This is just good practice.
How to Perform a Clean Installation of cTrader
To do a clean installation of cTrader for Windows 10, you need to follow these instructions exactly and in the exact order which they are written.
- Close cTrader. Not just the version you are experiencing an issue with, but all of them from all brokers.
- Restart your computer
- Hold the Windows key and press R, this will open the Run dialogue box. Enter appwiz.cpl to open the Programs and Features component of Windows.
Uninstall cTrader (and cAlgo if you have it installed).
Hold the Windows key and press R to open the Run dialogue box again, and enter %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Apps and press OK.Delete the one and only folder called “2.0” and close Windows Explorer.Hold down the Windows key and press R to open the Run dialogue box again, this time enter %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming and press OK.Delete the following folders; cTrader, cAlgo, cTraderUsers, -cTraderCommon and then close Windows Explorer. Make sure you delete the cTrader files which are preceded by a brokers name, such as “FxPro cTrader, FxPro cAlgo, FxPro-cTrader Users” etc.
If you have followed these steps correctly, then you will have completed a clean installation of cTrader.
