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@Dave CCleaner I have not heard anything back from you...did I answer your questions or do you need additional information? Thanks.

As shown in the above screenshots, all options of SmartCleaner are turned off and CC still pops up after the games are closed. In addition, in response to your question about how those games behave in a browser environment, both CC and those games have lived in harmony for quite a long time...only as @TechCop stated above that until recently CC has started misbehaving when various gaming platforms are shutdown. I thought it only inherent to Stem apps but it appears to trigger on other platforms as well. I don't if my symptoms are exactly like his, in that his tray is showing multiple instances of CC running in the background as I do, but suffice it to say that I cam't seem to wrap around the idea that most of my games have suddenly started behaving as though they have embedded browser components vs. something else triggering CC to override its own configuration and take SmartCleaning into it own hands...that is when software becomes intrusive not to mention dangerous.

TechCop, thanks for chiming in...the contribution is much appreciated! It's good to know that at least I'm not the only one out here in the darkness!

MeganCCleaner...as a followup to my previous message I have attached a snapshot of Cortex doing its thing (lower right corner) after terminating one of my games....when it finishes CC will pop up as described above despite its configuration. Also, if you have a particular game in mind to test let me know and I can see if I have it or go fetch it off Steam...anything to help out. Thanks! -----James

MeganCCleaner, the games that are troublesome so far seem to be associated with my Steam platform...my others (GOG, Discord, etc.) do not seem to have the issue but as yet, I have not seen them invoke Cortex to move memory offline. A number of my Steam games, when started from the launcher trigger Cortex as the game is loading...I get an indication of the amount of memory being reallocated and moved offline. When the game is terminated Cortex pops up and shows memory being reloaded. Once Cortex is finished CC then pops up with the symptoms described above and shows 3 or 4 instances of CC running in the system. After a period of time each CC terminates until there is only the single instance. Games such as Train Valley 2 or Puddle Knights cause this issue without fail...I can try others if you need me to, I'm not much of a hardcore gamer but I have a sized library. I would not spend a great deal of time on this as it definitely looks to be a conflict with Cortex and not the games themselves and I'm just going to relegate CC to a manual clean process instead of the automated processes. Let me know if I can help in any way...thanks for all the help! James

nukecad, Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. This behavior is happening with most of my games...although not with some. My Windows 10 Professional (version 20H2) build 19042.985 and I'm running McAfee LiveSafe. These systems are running on an Alienware M17R2 Notebook. AutoUpdate for CC is indeed enabled (I try to run an up-to-date system) but the minimize to the tray is not...I have since enabled that upon your advice. Thanks for bumping this for me, I appreciate it. I've been doing some additional testing and I'm chasing a gut-feeling about a piece of software called Razer Cortex which dynamically handles the memory pool, moving memory offline when a game is started. It seems that CC is only becoming a nuisance when Cortex kicks in to optimize my system's memory during gameplay...Cortex is not invoked when using any of my MS Office products and CC is not producing a pop-up then. This may just need to be something I'll have to live with or just invoke CC manually and relegate the smart-clean to an unusable feature. Still, I'll need to address the multiple instances of CC eating memory... Thanks for the help! James

To the Community: Thought I would try to see if I could find some answers here...have started having issues same as stated above where CC is popping open every time I close one of my games. In following some of the answers in the forum I first increase the junk file threshold to 10GB+ with no change in results. Next, someone suggested turning off just the junk file smart cleaner portion leaving the browser portion active but that too did not change things. Next, it was suggested to turn off Smart Cleaner altogether which I did (see attached file) which made no impact...CC still popping up everytime I close. Then, while trying to debug my system was reporting heavier that normal memory usage and in the course of looking into it noticed that everytime CC popped up the system showed 4 instances of the application running (see attached). I just renewed my license shortly ago and I'm disappointed that I'm beginning to have issues with this software and its becoming intrusive instead of quietly doing its job. Can anyone shed any light on this? Any help is appreciated.