Not in a communist country or one run by a dictator!
Pretty sure there’s no McDonalds ads in Burger King in a capitalist country too.
In fact in a communist regime would likely have more collusion between state owned franchises (like Gen digital, the current owners of ccleaner and multiple competing antimalwares (many of which also have cleaners themselves))
Finally, you’re talking about public square and government. In a capitalist system there’s the private space where “owner” can set speech and behavior rules as evidenced by CCleaner admin saying no alternate software mentioned in public forum; or, if you will, no Burger King ads in McDonald’s
Under Capitalism man exploits man, under Communism it’s the other way around.
I would appreciate if users participating in this thread would please stay on topic. This ongoing McDonalds vs Burger King banter isn’t providing any useful information for others who don’t want to upgrade to CCleaner v7.x but are concerned about the risks of running the (now unsupported) CCleaner v6.39 app on their system.
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7184 * Firefox v149.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26030.3011-1.1.26030.3008 * Malwarebytes Standard v5.5.3.246-153.1.5565 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.39.11548 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.095
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Hi Hmm888:
Just an FYI that new legacy CCleaner v6.40.11558 builds (rel. 16-Apr-2026) are now available posted on the official CCleaner builds download page. This includes the standard Win 7 / 8.x “sunset” installer (ccsetup640_win7.exe) as well as a new CCleaner Portable v6.40.11558 build (ccsetup640.zip) . Release notes are posted <here> and state “This release focuses on fixing update and connection issues affecting users on older versions of Windows”.
According to RENOP01’s 29-Apr-2026 topic 0x6 the handle is invalid. Suggested fix does not work. Can not update to 6.40.11558 On a Win 11 PC users might see a “0x6 the handle is invalid” error when trying to run the standard .exe installer on a newer Win 10 and/or Win 11 machine.
I keep a copy of CCleaner Free Portable v6.39.11548 (rel. 20-Aug-2025) on a removable USB stick that I use for comparative testing with other disk cleaners and it still appears to be running correctly on my Win 10 machine, although I only use the Custom Clean feature (i.e., I never use Health Check, Software Updater, etc.). I haven’t tested the new CCleaner Free Portable v6.40.11558 yet to see if it runs correctly on my Win 10 machine.
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7184 * Firefox v150.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26030.3011-1.1.26030.3008 * Malwarebytes Standard v5.5.4.252-154.0.5578 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.39.11548 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.095
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Wow and wow. Is all I can say about V7. I was curious and foolishly downloaded it while hoping the developers might reconsider and add-back the missing features especially with cookie cleaning and more. But no.
And the ccleaner service continuously running in the background??!!. It seemed to behave like malware — unstoppable. I reverted back to portable version of 6.39.11548. Even if Chrome or Edge does something to break ccleaner’s cookie cleaner, I’ll stay with it instead of updating to version 7.x.
It’s unfortunate how most ccleaner users are fine with this “downgrade”.
cc: @jsmit86
Hi Hmm888:
Anyone who has reverted back to v6.x in the past month or so should have received the latest CCleaner v6.40.11562 offered <here> on the official download page. See my 01-May-2026 post <above> about a buggy v6.40.11558 that was later replaced by v6.40.11562.
The direct download link for CCleaner Portable at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download/portable is currently offering ccsetup640.zip.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7291 * Firefox v151.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26040.7-1.1.26040.8 * Malwarebytes Standard v5.5.6.254-156.0.5608 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.095 * CCleaner Portable 64-bit v6.40.11562
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I’ve never seen a company so tone deaf and clueless that they don’t understand what end users actually do with the product. Not having the side by side cookie management is a deal breaker for me. If that feature was back, I’d gladly renew my premium subscription. Now, no way. My ThinkPad manages program and driver updates, so all I really need is cookie management.
I have no doubt that a huge amount of users will not renew as well.
This could easily be fixed by restoring that one feature. 
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The phrase “unattainable in this thread” is doing a lot of work here.
It suggests impossibility, but nothing in the wording explains what is actually impossible.
Is there a technical limitation, a moderation rule, or just a decision not to deal with it in this thread?
As written, it comes across less like “cannot be done” and more like “do not want to address it here.”
Hi Imacri:
Unfortunately, 6.40.11562 runs in the background despite copying over my ini file. I shall continue to use 6.39.11548
“unattainable” only shows up in your post, do you mean untenable from my quote. I’m not saying anything about it being unattainable I’m saying the current way is difficult and not as good as the version 6 method of cookies
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Hi Hmm888:
What are the names of the processes in the installed edition of CCleaner v6.40.11562 that load at Windows startup but aren’t included in 6.39.11548, and are you certain they weren’t orphaned remnants of CCleaner v7.x? Regardless, I seem to recall that all installed versions of CCleaner v6.x create (or used to create) scheduled tasks in Windows’ Task Scheduler like CCleanerCrashReporting, CCleanerSkipAUC and/or CCleaner Update that will load files like CCleanerBugReport.exe and CCUpdate.exe into memory when executed.
Unfortunately, I can’t test myself. I run my CCleaner Portable v6.40.11562 from a removable USB stick, and the only excutable I keep after unzipping ccsetup6xx.zip is CCleaner64.exe [i.e., I delete the \x86, \x64 and \Lang subfolders that contain bloat I don’t want like CCleanerBugReport.exe, CCleanerCrashDump.exe and CCleanerDU.dll (i.e., the CCleaner Driver Updater Extension)]. That USB stick is never plugged in when I power up my computer so it is impossible for my CCleaner Portable to launch any background tasks at Windows startup, and if I manually launch CCleaner Portable v6.40.11562 the only CCleaner process shown in Task Manager is CCleaner64.exe, which unloads from memory as soon as I close the CCleaner interface.
NOTE: CCleaner Portable creates the \Setup and \LOG subfolders the first time CCleaner64.exe is run. You must keep the \Lang subfolder if you use a non-English version of CCleaner.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7291 * Firefox v151.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26050.15-1.1.26050.11 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.5.7.255-157.0.5633 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.095 * CCleaner Portable 64-bit v6.40.11562
Hi lmacri,
Ccleaner is actually disabled upon startup. In fact, the entire service is disabled. It remains active only after it’s triggered. Occasionally, 6.39 does that too but rarely. I use process hacker now called System Informer. I use the English version.
But interestingly crashreporter was enabled in the task scheduler. Even after disabling it, version 6.40 runs in the background. However…it now does shutdown on it’s own after about 30 seconds.
Additionally, I noticed some portable apps like Chrome forks imbed themselves into the system registry so they’re not truly portable.
Your handle description as a “Post Meddler” perfectly matches your NPC, unhelpful, antagonistic behavior. In constructive forums, your dismissive and trolling-like comments would have gotten you banned long ago.
Unfortunately, 6.40.11562 runs in the background despite copying over my ini file.
Hi Hmm888:
I only asked about your experience with the installed edition CCleaner Free v6.40 because you are the only Win 10 or Win 11 user I know of who has reported they noticed a difference in behaviour between v6.39 and v6.40. If it turns out that there is a proven problem with CCleaner Free v6.40 processes constantly running in the background then I’ll stop recommending that CCleaner v6.39 users update to v6.40 if they have a Win 10 or Win 11 OS.
I noticed some portable apps like Chrome forks imbed themselves into the system registry so they’re not truly portable.
That is also the case with CCleaner Portable, like most of my other ~ 30 portable apps. See my 23-Dec-2024 topic How to Remove Last Traces of CCleaner Free Portable v6.x?.
Using CCleaner Portable v6.40 with the configuration I described in my 11-Jun-2026 post <above> I currently have :
- 5 registry values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner
- 1 registry value at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner
- 0 CCleaner-related tasks in Task Scheduler (e.g., CCleanerCrashReporting, CCleaner Update, CCleanerSkipUAC, etc.) NOTE: My setting at Options | Advanced | User Account Control Warning is disabled.
Also note that:
- I’ve created custom inbound and outbound traffic blocks for CCleaner64.exe in my Windows Firewall to minimize telemetry with the backend CCleaner servers as instructed in the How-To Geek article How to Block An Application from Accessing the Internet with Windows Firewall). NOTE: Also see Sampei Nihira’s 05-Jun-2024 post # 171 in the Wilders Security Forums topic CCleaner v6 for a list of modifications they made to their Hosts file to further reduce telemetry with the backend CCleaner servers, which I’ve never tried (and may not still work with CCleaner v.39 and / or v6.40).
- As I stated in my 30-Dec-2025 post <above>, CCleaner is no longer my preferred disk cleaner and I only keep a copy of CCleaner Portable on my USB stick for comparative testing with other disk cleaners.
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.7291 * Firefox v151.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.26050.15-1.1.26050.11 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.5.7.255-157.0.5633 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * HDCleaner Portable 64-Bit v2.095 * CCleaner Portable 64-bit v6.40.11562
Hi Hmm888:
The "shield badge next to Nergal’s username shows they are a Forum Moderator. They have years of experience using CCleaner and assisting fellow CCleaner users troubleshoot issues, and I have always found their advice and suggestions to be both informative and appreciated.
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