Wisewiz

Once a week or so, I use the built-in Disk Cleanup utility to supplement the work CCleaner does for me. It's particularly valuable for Windows Update leftovers. But it also offers to clean up "Non-critical files used by Microsoft Windows Defender." I generally find somewhere around 20MB listed in Disk Cleanup's selection window, and if I tick that option and run Disk Cleanup's Delete Files function, and then re-open Disk Cleaner to see what it now shows for delete-able Defender files, it shows about 19Mb or more still there. However, If I run Disk Cleanup and it finds 20MB for Defender, and I tick that choice and hit OK, and it shows the confirmation window with an option button to Delete the selected files, this works a lot better: Leave that confirmation window open (IOW, don't hit the OK button), then open Defender's control window, and turn off Tamper Protection, and then turn off Defender temporarily (it's always temporary, because Windows will tun it back on in a few minutes at most) and THEN hit the OK button in the Disk Cleanup confirmation window, wait for Disk Cleanup to finish, and then turn Defender back on and turn Tamper Protection back on, and then open Disk Cleanup again, it will show only a few KB of Defender files. That sounds like a lot of work, but it's not, and once you do it, it'll be easy the next time. I'm quite sure that Disk Cleanup doesn't EVER do anything harmful to your computer. Let's be clear: I'm not recommending that you clean up Defender's "Non-critical files," that's your business. Just saying that this is one way to do it if you choose to do it.

The long-serving builds page at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds appears to have been abandoned. Today, Friday 18 August '23, it's still showing the previous edition of CCleaner, and offering only that version in all the downloads links. What's going on? That page has always been resource number one for downloads of new versions of Free, Slim, and Portable.

Would you be willing to post a copy of your note to them for me to copy? Or, maybe note your main points for me? I have three Professional licenses, and I usually get very quick replies from them, even though I'm clearly blacklisted in their community. I call 'em as I see 'em.

Might be. I added that line to my hosts file (in Win\Sys32\drivers\etc). P.S.: I still have only the four and two I showed above (waaay above. Can you believe we're on page 6 now? I hope Piriform knows this is a serious issue.)

I certainly hope the developers are paying attention to this discussion, or, at least, that the support people in the Philippines are listening to the complaints they are surely getting about this unacceptable behavior of the registry-fouling not-really-portable "portable" version. The unwelcome Welcome screen is apparently gone. Let's hope they turn their attention now to making the portable truly portable.

That's just one of the reasons why homemade (user-made) portables don't come close to the quality of properly made portables. You can find a whole bunch of sets of instructions for creating your own "portable" versions from Installer versions on the Web, but it ain't the same thing at all. The homemade ones behave exactly like the installed ones. (If they work at all, that is.)

Forget it. It worked if I ignored the pop-up from Windows. I see in search results, though, that it might not be a good idea to run executables from .zip files. Something about throwing ,dll files. Anyway, as you said, it does work. Interesting.

@hazelnut Thank you for reminding us of that two-year-old stuff. I actually think my wording way back then was absolutely appropriate: "I don't actually think it will surprise you to know that millions of non-business users of the Portable version of CCleaner get their downloads from https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds, or to know that many if not most of those users choose the Portable version to avoid having to install the program, not to put it on a flash drive. There is a large and rapidly growing community of computer users who avoid software installs whenever possible, and a part of the reason for avoiding installs is the desire to avoid unnecessary additions to the registry." Yes. Yes. Yes.

I have no idea how you an run an executable from within an un-extracted .zip. How do you do it? Just double-clicking the executable doesn't work.

Wow! I didn't realize I'd (we've) been going on and on about this for that long.

@nukecad OK if I quote your post on Eleven Forum?

@lmacri All I have in Task Scheduler (for CC) is CCleanerCrashReporting, which runs once a day at about 5 PM. @nukecad That's the best news about CCleaner I've seen in ages. Thank you. Since I don't have the abomination at all, I wouldn't have known if not for your post.

Me, neither! I tried to be precise in my description of what I did, but it's possible that either you or I missed a step. I'm still thinking about it. And of course I'll report here if anything changes on either of my drivers.

@nukecad The next time I mention any outrageous ideas, I'll be sure to whisper. Your way is certainly practical, but I prefer carrying it on a stick. That way I leave nothing behind. Maybe. This is CCleaner, after all. Tread lightly.

Yeah, well, they could always phase out the Free edition. But I think they'd still have to offer the Portable for IT people who need to use CC on clients' machines. I hope they'd offer the Portable, anyway.

@Trojan132Hey, man: it's a little embarrassing to see my words repeated in their entirety. How about editing that post (the dots above) and taking out part or all of that message?

@lmacriHi there, you ol' fellow Canuck, I think you may have missed some of the history of this way-too-long thread. Here's the long story made short: I got tired of fighting with the Welcome screen and the registry, so I uninstalled CCleaner Professional (it was the Portable, but I entered my license), took all of the traces out of File Explorer, deleted both Piriform keys in the registry (HKCU and HKLM) completely, and then installed the (then) latest Portable and did not enter my license key, and when I had configured the new install and pasted my previous CCleaner.ini (with all my saved cookies and a few other bits) into the new CCleaner folder (on my D:\ drive and nowhere to be seen in C:\users or in any of the C:\ programs folders), I launched the program about ten times (with no Welcome screen in sight) and then checked my registry and found only two Dword values (the old Cfg ones) in HKCU and only four in HKLM, no "(Cfg)Welcome Screen" among them. I didn't update to v.14, I just overwrote the old Portable files with the new ones from the CCleaner builds site. That way CCleaner is not among my "Installed Apps" in Windows 11, and my registry continues to have only the few values I mentioned above. And I haven't seen the Welcome screen in weeks, although I launch CC at least twice a day. No, I haven't tried updating CCleaner Pro, because I got rid of that installation completely, and I'm not going back to it, even though I have three licenses, until or unless the powers-that-be announce that the Welcome screen is history. And that's not likely to happen at all, according to @nukecad above. I have all I use and all I need in the Portable (Custom, Registry, and the quick check on System Restore points in Tools). Guess that wasn't so short after all. Sorry. Dan, in Balmy Southern Ontario.

Just updated my Portable install to V.14.x. I still have only four (LM) and two (CU) entries in CCleaner in my registry, and there's still no Welcome Back screen.

Did you tell them you have a license? It's unusual for them not to reply within about 24 hours at most. Maybe try sending it again, with your license key added to it.

"If you don't have a space there then that could be the problem?" Yep. I think so.

@Trojan132 Have you tried changing that to CCleaner[space]/AUTO ? I use that all the time. Works. But you're right: the AUTOSC thing is a bug.

(Oh, heavy sigh!) I'm afraid you're absolutely right, and all of this sound and fury is going to turn out to have accomplished nothing. Well, dammit, we tried. That ought to count for something. Thanks again for hanging in there through all of this harangue. I appreciate it.

I think that captures precisely what the developers accomplished with the new splash screen. And it's just as annoying as the splash screens of yesteryear were. But there's no switch to kill it, like the splash screen switches of most applications and utilities had.

@Trojan132