CCleaner Portable

CCleaner for Windows
1

Hi all, two things I want to find out before playing around with the portable CCleaner.

1. If I use a portable install of CCleaner on a computer that has CCleaner installed on its hard drive, will running the portable version mess with the .ini or any other settings of the install on the host machine?

I recall reading something about that on the PortableApps forums.

2. Reading this forum post: Does portable CCleaner need to access the registry on the host machine at all?

2

CCleaner Portable is all self-contained in the folder where you run it from since it has a portable.dat file which tells it it's the portable version, and it only uses settings from ccleaner.ini.

3

CCleaner Portable is all self-contained in the folder where you run it from since it has a portable.dat file which tells it it's the portable version, and it only uses settings from ccleaner.ini.

So if I run the portable version on a machine with a local install of CC I don't have to worry with it changing the ccleaner.ini on that machine?

Thanks

4

Correct!

5

I recall reading something about that on the PortableApps forums.

Some of their Apps never touch the registry,

Some make extensive use of the registry and clean up after use - unless the App crashes.

Portable CC never touches the registry.

Before I upgrade CC I always unzip the latest to another folder,

and I run and Analyse both of them side by side and compare results.

They do not interact during analysis.

Were I to launch the CLEAN action simultaneously then they might conflict,

but I hope to stave of senility for a few more years.

6

Some of their Apps never touch the registry,

Some make extensive use of the registry and clean up after use - unless the App crashes.

Portable CC never touches the registry.

Before I upgrade CC I always unzip the latest to another folder,

and I run and Analyse both of them side by side and compare results.

They do not interact during analysis.

Were I to launch the CLEAN action simultaneously then they might conflict,

but I hope to stave of senility for a few more years.

I'm probably at the senior senility stage; BUT I think I can avoid launching them both at once. My main interest with the portable install is to help out friends who ask for assistance on their computers, could show them what it does and insist they do a local install of it and use it.

Thanks for the replies.

7

"Touches" can mean two things in this question

CCleaner Portable, it is true, writes none of it's own entries to a machine on which it is run

However

Yes, Ccleaner Portable DOES still remove certain registry entries if a particular check box removes a reg entry

for example

[Adobe Reader 9.0]
ID=2137
LangSecRef=3021
Detect=HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0
Default=True
RegKey1=HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles
FileKey1=%LocalAppData%\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Cache\Search|*.*
FileKey2=%LocalLowAppData%\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Search|*.*

will still remove HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles if run from a portable build.

8

"Touches" can mean two things in this question

CCleaner Portable, it is true, writes none of it's own entries to a machine on which it is run

However

Yes, Ccleaner Portable DOES still remove certain registry entries if a particular check box removes a reg entry

for example

[Adobe Reader 9.0]
ID=2137
LangSecRef=3021
Detect=HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0
Default=True
RegKey1=HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles
FileKey1=%LocalAppData%\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Cache\Search|*.*
FileKey2=%LocalLowAppData%\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Search|*.*

will still remove HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles if run from a portable build.

So in your example what CCleaner portable is doing is removing Recently Opened Files from Adobe or Foxit or Office, whatever is checked, and leaving an empty registry entry; am I correct? Just doing its job for the items I have checked.

Hope I'm reading the example correct, so far with the CCleaner I have installed on my computers it has never corrupted anything.

9

in essence yes that is what it is doing. It's is deleting the cRecentFiles entry completly. The next time Reader starts it will recreate that entry in a fresh clean state.