I had trouble logging into the forum for the last 15 hours...
Thank you all for your questions, comments, and directions. Isn't it amazing how we think we're being so precise in these posts yet all these questions come up? I've moved my "bottom line" to the top of this text lest the answers to your questions turn into red herrings. New info: the target system was Win 7.
The whole purpose to my inquiry(ies) has been that if I could find the place where a CCleaner re-installation was picking up the defaults then I could explicitly verify the settings that were in use on the target system the last time it was run.
Allow me to add another questions to the mix (it may help): how can I tell the date of the last time CCleaner was run? There was no prefetch file (C:/Windows/Prefetch/ccleaner.exe*.pf) on the target system.
Augeas: Let me answer your questions in sequence:
"You searched for CCleaner on your target image and had no hits?"
I had no search hits in the registry and hard drive on my TEST systems after uninstalling. I verified this behavior under W2K, XP PRO, and XP Home versions. I did this to try and find ccleaner "residue" as a clue to where it might be picking up the defaults. That strategy obviously didn't work. (yet?)
"Is CC installed on the target image? Do you have a c:/program files/ccleaner folder?"
Yes, the path exists: c:/program files/ccleaner/ccleaner.exe
"You imply that there's no registry entry for individual CC check boxes until the boxes are checked (something I didn't know)."
No implication! It's really cool to sit there with the registry open, looking at the HKEY_CurrentUser\Software\Piriform\CCleaner path and watch the entries get created and then toggled between True and False! Try it! You can also watch these entries get created in the registry during the install process. Some of the registry stuff gets created at install-time and some the first time you run CC. In addition, the registry path below also gets updated.:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-2436634489-3716022376-2615223600-1008\Software\Piriform\CCleaner
After uninstalling CCleaner on my test system I came up with no hits when searching the hard drive or the registry - the uninstall seems to do a very thorough job. HOWEVER, when I reinstalled version 2.29 for testing it pulled my previous settings from somewhere. I also searched file contents (after uninstalling from my test system) and came up with no hits for CCleaner or Piriform. I also searched the entire C drive for ccleaner.ini - no hits. As I said, CCleaner seems to do a really good job removing itself.
The target system has multiple entries for CCleaner in the registry and the hard drive. The one that convinced me that it was installed was the HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\CCleaner Entries under this key on the target system entry also report the version number.
DennisD, Andavari: Thank you for pointing me to the default settings, at least I can find out what the default settings were supposed to be!
Update: version 2.29 doesn't seem to have a "restore default settings button" ??