Wisewiz

Thanks, @lmacriand @hazelnutfor those interesting posts. My wa_3rd ... 32 and wa_3rd ...64 are now gone and everything seems okay. They're obviously not essential additions.

@lmacri Yeah, noticed that new file in my 64 folder. Now that I've seen your post, I thought I'd see what happened if I deleted it. Answer: Nothing. I've put it back, JIC, but I have no idea what it's doing in there. Or why.

Checking the Builds page over the past few days since 6.18 was released, and the Portable is still 6.17.10746. How come?

UPDATE: Three weeks on CCPortable on two computers, with activated licenses and (later) deleted .lic files (so it returns to Free) and many checks for updates, and STILL there is no Piriform in either HKCU or HKLM. Looks like a success story to me.

Thanks, @Nergal. I figured Avast wouldn't place ads right on the download page for ccPortable if anything unacceptable to Avast/Piriform were going on. The ads seem to be an attempt to lure users to the installed versions of CCleaner, where Avast has a foothold on the program and the registry, but most experienced users of PA.com will know that they want the PA version anyway. I think Haller and PA.com are scrupulously honest about what they're providing in all the cases I've seen.

I dunno. Piriform is advertising CCleaner heavily on PortableApps.com presently. Mebbe there's an arrangement.

BTW, I am not shilling for PortableApps.com. I donate to them; they pay me nothing. But, for those who, like @lmacri, "prefer to use software that's released and supported by the original developer," a note on ccPortable from PortableApps: "This is an online installer that will download CCleaner during setup." The installer file downloads the base files from Piriform, and adds its own supporting files for the portable installation. It creates no registry entries, and does not register the app as an Installed App in Windows.

Well, an update: I'm on my third day of CCPortable from Portable Apps, and I've run it many times and checked for updates in it many times, and I've even registered my license with it (successfully) and turned it into CCleaner Professional, and it still hasn't produced a single Piriform registry entry. Zero. There is no Piriform in my registry, in either CU or LM, just to make myself clear. I've removed the lic. file from the directory and returned to CCleaner Free, because the old problem I've complained about to CC Support -- with my license activated, the utility takes at least 8, sometimes as much as 15, seconds to open; without the license, it opens in a second flat -- was back as soon as I activated. I had thought to copy my original .exe file back to the directory to get the Free (portable) back, but it turned out, not very surprisingly, that all you have to do is delete the lic. file. The same .exe is apparently used for installed Professional, installed Free, and portable Free. I'm continuing to run CCPortable from PortableApps.com repeatedly, and check for updates (because that check could be counted on to produce a line change in the registry when I was using the portable from the Builds page) and so far, so better-than-good. Excellent! Oh, the portable.dat file must be in the CC directory. Don't forget that detail.

Oh, in case someone's counting, the others I've always updated by installing the next portable version from PA.com. Quick and easy.

@lmacri, l, I decided a couple of years ago not to use the PA Platform, and I've never regretted that decision. All of my PA programs update through their internal updaters without issue. I've never (so far) had to go back to PA to get the next updated version of anything. And this freedom from the PA Platform means I can put my portables wherever I want them, without regard to the needs of the Platform to have them in a manageable folder. My Resource Hacker, Thunderbird, Autoruns, CrystalDiskInfo, Everything (Search), Firefox, HWInfo, IrfanView, Audacity, VLC Player, LibreOffice Fresh, and PDF X-Change Editor all update internally without any screw-ups. That said, I have only a couple of days of experience with CC Portable from PA, and we'll have to see what happens, but I suspect that when the next CC update is announced, Haller will post an updated version on PA.com, and that will install without changing anything. I wouldn't let CC update itself, because that would really pile the junk on my machine, write like crazy to the reg, and change my portable to installed. I don't think there's any doubt about that with the portable CC from the Builds page, either. It's a simple, quick, easy DIY project to put in the updated exe. The updates from PA are almost that easy. Download, run, done.

On one of my machines, the license number and details are displayed, exactly as they are on my other machines, but I'm nameless, as seen in my attachment. Anybody here know why that would be?

Hi, @hazelnut, Yahbut, ... No response from CC Support on this issue at all. Nada. Zilch. It deserves fixing. Portables should not leave trash behind. (Wisewiz's First Law of Portables.)

@Crni, @lmacri, and others interested in the registry problem: An alternative I've just tried today. Runs exactly like the portables from the Builds page, but makes NO REG ENTRIES AT ALL. John Haller does a great job with portable versions. I copied my CC.ini to the new folder, in the Data folder, and it works perfectly. I deleted all the usual stuff, and it continues without blinking. Might be worth switching for those of us who hate the registry-polluting behavior of the Portables from the Builds page. Worth consiidering, anyway. I have about twenty utilities on my machines from PortableApps.com, and I've never had a problem with any of them. https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/ccportable

@Crni and others here, Yes , I've found, too, that the only way to control it is to download the Portable from the builds page when CC tells me there's a new version. Even the Free version updates are vilely polluted if you install them. I stil have only these in my registry, after several moinths of managing this thing, and after several downloaded, installed Portable updates (and I don't think they'll ever remove this garbage from the program's operation): (Top is CU; lower, LM)

@lmacri: Thanks for that report. I don't think you have to do the fresh download and key deletion things, if you just edit the Data Folder and Program Folder values to the correct (new) drive. It's worth a try, anyway. Quote: I can likely fix this by deleting my HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Piriform registry keys and starting with a fresh download and unzip of ccsetup615.zip on the USB 3.0 stick but it just illustrates why you don't want portable apps saving settings in the registry.

Thank you, @lmacri, for noticing those things. They'd both escaped my notice. And thank you, @Nergal, for that information. A fruitful thread, this.

@Peter CCleaner You're very welcome. I've just had a look at the page, and all seems to be in perfect order now. Thank you for acting on my complaint. HAGD.

@nukecad Thanks for that. At least now we know that their computers are working, even if the people are not,

@Peter CCleaner Thank you for acknowledging my concern. I’m pleased to hear that the builds page is still a going concern, and has not, in fact, been abandoned. I’m sure that if the traffic on that page were measured, the responsible people would be gratified by the results. It’s a very popular watering hole for CCleaner enthusiasts.

Well, yeah, I knew that, but how can they all be taking a siesta for weeks on end? (Seriously, I hope nothing bad has happened to the support people.)

@lmacri "but haven't heard back from them." Same song; second verse .... could be better, but it's getting worse. Where the h**l are these people, anyway?

The whole organization seems to be on holidays lately. The CC builds page, which always has the very latest versions the same day they're released, doesn't any more. 10584 is still there after at least a week.

@lmacriI wipe my cookies, except for the ones I have CCleaner set to keep for me, every night before shutdown. Part of my nightly ritual. The reCaptcha worked for me, too, but the Submit button just brings me the message I posted above. So yes, that's precisely what I mean. ("Do you mean that's what's you see after you click the "Send Me My License Details" button at https://support.ccleaner.com/ and enter your email address?")

@lmacri and @nukecad Hi, both! I still haven't received a peep of any kind from them. And when I try the support page at support.ccleaner.com, I get this over and over again on successive attempts on successive days: I feel "a little bit funny" (Elton) about pursuing this [Portable puts entries in the registry] issue, since my CC Portables on both my office machines still have only 4 original lines in HKLM and 2 lines (now just one) in HKCU. I've done a couple of things to those entries, with no visible effects on CC's behaviour. In LM, under the CCleaner key is a properties subkey with a DWord "UseRegistry" which had a value of 1 originally, and I've changed that to 0. In CU, in CCleaner, there were two DWord lines, an AP line (? no idea) and a DU line that was (I guess) recording old DU use from when I registered my key briefly and used the DU function to check what it would find (but I never use the update function; I get my driver updates when needed from the issuers). I've left the AP line and I deleted the DUxxxx line some time ago, and it hasn't been replaced. I've tried here to describe what I might have done to achieve this minimal registry invasion, but I'm still mystified, and I see no evidence online (other than on this site) that anyone else is having a problem with the registry pollution. Maybe that's because your average user doesn't have any idea what the registry is.

@nikki605 Thank you very much for discovering that. I tried the page, and was disappointed to find that the Free full install version is indeed 615, but the portable is still 614. You can, however, get the 615 Portable from Major Geeks. I recall from my long-ago Major Geeks days that there is a special relationship of some sort between Piriform and MG. The creator of CrapCleaner was a frequent visitor to the MG forums back then. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ccleaner_portable.html