Ccleaner has always worked fine on my pc with Win Xp, then suddenly no longer starts.
I tried Ccleaner Portable but it’s the same thing.
I thought a virus, but I don’t have it (I made deep scan with Avira and Malwarebytes, safe and normale mode).
I’ve tried everything: direct click on exe in the folder… I have uninstalled and re-installed CCleaner many times with many different versions, both from Safe Mode from the normal mode… it always happens the same thing: clicking on Ccleaner.exe the hourglass appears for 2 seconds and then stop. Nothing. But in Safe Mode Ccleaner works fine always; in normal mode works only renaming exe file.
Then I discovered that Ccleaner works perfectly renaming the .exe file also in normal mode.
I often run the registry cleaner with several different programs (JetClean, Regcleaner), and I think maybe there is a command line in the registry that prevents Ccleaner to start, and this command line is not loaded when Windows starts in safe mode, so Ccleaner works.
I used HiKackThis both in safe mode and in normal mode, saving and comparing the lists of running processes, to try to figure out which process is NOT loaded in safe mode and allows to run Ccleaner … but also check one by one I’ve not found the damned Ccleaner-killer process.
I stopped all active processes not essentials, I tried to change the user and the problem has always been: Ccleaner works only in safe mode, or renaming the file .exe - with all the version I tested…
CCleaner is the only software that has this problem among all of those installed.
What do you think? Do you have suggestions?.. Thanks.
I've read your other posts in that other topic which suggested you start your own topic.
I'd recommend that you actually read forum rule 10, there are links to legitimate malware removal sites listed in it where an expert malware removal helper can assist you one-on-one and tell you rather you have an infection or not. It's a known fact that some malware will stop the usage of CCleaner, i.e.; won't permit it to run.
Just scanning with Avira AntiVir and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware may not be enough, it often requires the use of specialized removal tools to properly remove an infection, and or repair the system from damage caused by an infection that's either still active, improperly, or not fully removed by an anti-virus or anti-malware.
Ellin - I'm sorry to hear about your problems. It took me a while to read everything, since it is split between two different threads. I suggest you follow Hazelnut's advice, and do as Alan_B and Andavari have recommended: throw everything you can at it. Scanning with one or two virus/malware scanners is not enough. I found this out the hard way when I tried to remove ransomware from my brother's laptop. I used the portable version of a popular malware removal product to remove this problem, then scanned with two other products and got a negative result. I thought all was well and returned the laptop to my brother. Two days later he brought it back to me stating it would not boot properly, and I found it would loop from startup to startup repair, back to startup, and so on. The solution was to use a portable drive wiper to wipe C:/ partition completely clean and re-install Windows from the recovery partition. Very, very time consuming, and since my brother is not a wiz at doing backups, he lost some important files. So throw everything you can at the problem now, and be sure to back up your important data while you can.
Edit: My approach to registry cleaners: it always seems like a good idea until it turns on you and bites you in the hindquarters. Always, always, always back up the registry before you use registry cleaning software. Another lesson I learned the hard way.
for my 2 cents worth, also consider the amount of time currently spent and the potential amount yet to spend in the hope of finding the malware and successfully removing it.
and at the moment all you know ids CCleaner is effected, there is no guarantee something else isn't effected that you don't know about yet.
Personally, I would be backing up and starting from scratch; you know the current problem will be sorted and any other potential nasties.
Malware tends to be tip of the iceberg sort of stuff, the more you dig, the more you find.
You may burn in hell with the Windows reload, but it'll be a couple of hours spent compared to at least a couple of hours chasing malware.