Mr C

quick update, if i entered C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts in explorer I was asked what to use to open the file so i chose notepad but it wasn't as admin a apparently even though i am admin on my PC and no matter how i tried to save it I could save it in the etc folder. The host file did contain piriform.com The actual host file is also not viewable even if i set the folder to show hidden files so I could copy it to another folder to edit. If I opened notepad as administrator and chose open and then went to the etc folder I still could not see the file even as "all files". I dragged the whole etc to my desktop but notepad will only save as txt and not sys so that didnt overwrite the original host file. Only solution I found that allowed me to activate my license was rename the etc folder and reboot so no host file was read. Now I still need to figure out how to edit the host file in case not having one causes issues.

Yes did that too and turned off my firewall, even setup rules in it for all of the CCCleaner exe files. I even uninstalled it and cleared the registry lines and installed it on a different drive. I also noticed when i first installed the trial is kept saying I needed to be online to activate the trial when I was online so I uninstalled that I decided to buy it just in case the trial was faulty. Could it be a compatibility issue with windows 11 64 bit? I sent a mail to support now.

I just purchased CCCleaner pro and am getting this to, i have nothing in my host.bak file with piriform.com in it and my VPN is off.