Can I replace AppCompatCache with an old version ?

CCleaner for Windows
1

I believe caches are supposed to speed up access but not be vital and should refresh/rebuild

Does this apply to these keys, as reported by RegScanner from Nirsoft

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\AppCompatCache    AppCompatCache    REG_BINARY    27/05/2011 18:58:03    185,648    
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Session Manager\AppCompatCache    AppCompatCache    REG_BINARY    27/05/2011 18:58:03    185,648    
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\AppCompatCache    AppCompatCache    REG_BINARY    27/05/2011 18:58:03    185,648

I find that once in 2 or 3 days for nearly 4 weeks my Windows 7 Ultimate Event log has been reporting a critical "SideBySide Error".

The complaint starts "Activation context generation failed for "E:\Downloads\SoftonicDownloader_for_notepad-portable.exe"

I never used that downloader.

I searched for Portable Notepads and quickly downloaded what looked good.

Unfortunately Softonics did a bait and switch that actually gave me their downloader which wanted acceptance of their EULA.

I never gave that a OK and nothing seemed to happen.

I deleted their downloader from E:\Downloads\

That file no longer exist anywhere on my system, but Regscanner finds that the memory lingers on in each of those three AppCompatCache keys.

These 3 keys have that complete file path and file name.

I have yesterday's whole disc image backed up and ready for use

I am thinking of restoring my system back one month to when it never saw this wretched downloader.

Then I have two choices :-

1) The hard way - re-install all the applications I have installed or upgraded this month,

and mount yesterday's image so BestSync will do all the recent changes to my non-installed files, documents, and desktop links,

(not too hard but a couple of hours of tedious - been here and done that);

2) The easy way - export those three AppCompatCache keys which never saw downloader as registry hives,

then restore yesterday's image and import/over-write the AppCompatCache keys,

and hope that their cache facility will be suitably refreshed to see the new applications and upgrades.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Regards

Alan

2

Alan I would try the easy way first, I think you seem to have covered yourself in other ways if something goes wrong. Then take the hard route.

Let us know how it goes.

By the way, what does sfc /scannow show in the cbs logs?

3

Thanks Hazel, the easy way it will be.

I did not want to go that way if it was doomed to absolute non-bootable failure

(a very good reason for my having duplicate Macrium Boot CD's)

The "sfc /scannow" results in %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log were intimidating, all 591 KB of them.

I am much happier about the subsequent results from

findstr /c:"[sR]" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >sfcdetails.txt

All 35 KB of them

They were all of the form

2011-05-28 16:22:14, Info CSI 000002c5 [sR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components

2011-05-28 16:22:14, Info CSI 000002c6 [sR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction

2011-05-28 16:22:22, Info CSI 000002c8 [sR] Verify complete

After which it closed with

2011-05-28 16:22:22, Info CSI 000002c9 [sR] Verifying 9 components

2011-05-28 16:22:22, Info CSI 000002ca [sR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction

2011-05-28 16:22:23, Info CSI 000002cc [sR] Verify complete

2011-05-28 16:22:23, Info CSI 000002cd [sR] Repairing 0 components

2011-05-28 16:22:23, Info CSI 000002ce [sR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction

2011-05-28 16:22:23, Info CSI 000002d0 [sR] Repair complete

I believe that shows no errors were detected that needed repairing, so nothing to worry about

Then I tried

findstr /c:" CSI 00000" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >sfcdetails.txt

That was a 142 KB file, quite troubling.

2011-05-28 16:19:09, Info CSI 00000232 Ignoring duplicate ownership for directory

Obviously sfc is not worried about duplicate ownership (whatever that may be),

or perhaps like me it does not know how to repair duplicate ownership ! !

I am not worried, just at an enhanced state of anxiety - part of the Joy of Windows ! ! !

This is the complete critical error message that set me off on this rampage :-

Activation context generation failed for "E:\Downloads\SoftonicDownloader_for_notepad-portable.exe".Error in manifest or policy file "" on line . A component version required by the application conflicts with another component version already active. Conflicting components are:. Component 1: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.17514_none_41e6975e2bd6f2b2.manifest. Component 2: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.17514_none_fa396087175ac9ac.manifest.

You may recall advising me when a .NET Framework patch could not be installed on XP,

and the only cure was to uninstall and then re-install all versions of .NET in the correct order,

and that was a total disaster because of corruption in, I think, a manifest which should have identified the order of component installation,

and without that information Windows absolutely refused to un-install.

Hence I get twitchy if I think a manifest has got corrupted by a "rogue" application attempting to install itself.

Regards

Alan