How to disable 'Software Updater'

If anybody knows, PM if you don't wanna post here:

1) What to put in regedit to remove either the 'Registry' tab or the 'Easy Clean' tab?

2) Is there any way to stop those two connections being made on 'Custom Clean' tab?

3) Any way to stop the 'LOG' folder from being created every time I open CCleaner64.exe

I figured out, with portable, if you add to (Cfg)DumpReporting=0

to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner]

*That gets rid of the config.def file and folder that's created.

Easiest way to disable it is to create a block on the .EXE files (CCleaner.exe, CCleaner64.exe) in Windows Firewall (or other software firewall).

Note that blocking .EXE files that are typically always trying to phone home which you have no control over via their GUI can cause them to have an unreasonable delay when opening the program each and every time. Using the now very old version of CCleaner Portable (official portable, not the one from PortableApps.com) that I continue to use I haven't encountered that at all, however with Recuva Portable it's a rather massive delay before the GUI displays.

On 11/05/2024 at 23:26, Andavari said:
<div class="ipsQuote_contents">
	<p>
		Easiest way to disable it is to create a block on the .EXE files <em>(CCleaner.exe, CCleaner64.exe)</em> in Windows Firewall (or other software firewall).
	</p>

	<p>
		Note that blocking .EXE files that are typically always trying to phone home which you have no control over via their GUI can cause them to have an unreasonable delay when opening the program each and every time. Using the now very old version of CCleaner Portable (official portable, not the one from PortableApps.com) that I continue to use I haven't encountered that at all, however with Recuva Portable it's a rather massive delay before the GUI displays.
	</p>
</div>

Which version of CCleaner Portable are you using?

I have the same problem. Shouldn’t the portable version save the configurations in the ccleaner.ini file in the folder? Why did it also save them in the registry? I don’t want to have made a mistake . After CCleaner updated itself from version 628 to 629 and unpacked all the files in its folder, after a few days I re-downloaded a clean portable version 629 folder from the Ccleaner website and reopened the program from there. Could it be that, having seen that the version had already been used and not finding the ccleaner.ini file in the new folder, it created the registry key? Or maybe the configuration key is always created in any case? This is the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner

That seems to be your answer.

You appear to have installed the Portable rather than keeping it as a portable.
(Preferably on a removable drive, so that it is portable as intended).

If CCleaner was not installed then it would not be able to automatically update itself.

Hi nukecad:

I don’t understand. How is it possible to install the portable build (currently ccsetup629.zip)?

By “install” do you mean if the user unzips the ccsetup6xx.zip file in a subfolder in C:\Program Files\ (or any other location on the hard drive) instead of unzipping on a removable USB stick?


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Hi ADPP:

My own testing shows that if you perform a clean reinstall of CCleaner Free Portable (e.g., no registry keys at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Piriform, no tasks in Task Scheduler, etc.) and then unzip the ccleaner6xx.zip file on a removable USB stick where you would normally run a portable app, the first time you launch the bundled portable executable (32-bit CCleaner.exe or 64-bit CCleaner64.exe) it will still create dozens of registry entries, even if the setting at Options | Advanced | Save All Settings to INI File is enabled. See my 20-Jul-2023 post in Wisewiz’s Welcome back to CCleaner Professional ??? for details about one of those tests.

Crni’s 23-Jul-2023 post <here> in Wisewiz’s topic confirms this:

"I echo your concern as true portable app should NOT be creating anything inside registry or any files outside its portable folder. As I posted earlier, using CCleaner Portable for the first time on a new device will by default setup 50+ registry entries and will setup default configuration ignoring whatever is inside CCleaner.ini file that goes with portable instance.

However, simply deleting everything from the registry and blocking access to “shepherd.ff.avast.com” is sufficient to prevent CCleaner Free Portable to add any of the problematic entries back into registry. If you have an advanced router you can do it there, or can add an entry to the firewall, or simply add this to your hosts file: …"

My best guess is that this is the result of laziness on the part of Avast / Piriform. AFAIK, they simply take the main CCleaner.exe and CCleaner64.exe executables that come with the “standard” ccleaner6xx.exe installer and bundle those executables inside the portable ccleaner6xx.zip file without any modifications that would prevent the “portable” executables from creating registry entries.


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Yes I was meaning just that,
(and then probably letting it auto-update, or doing a ‘Check for Updates’ within CCleaner itself would do a full install).

I was rembering that @Wisewiz had looked into that question prettty extensively, but see that you found some of his posts already.
The question of it still making registry entries was/is a particular bugbear:

245 / 5.000
I downloaded portable 628 to my hard drive, opened the 64 executable and left the automatic update flag checked. The next time I ran the program it was up to date. I didn’t do anything myself

Thanks for the reply. So it’s not me who behaved in a wrong or imprudent way?

Could leaving those entries in the registry create problems or is it just an “aesthetic” problem? I also deleted the activities in task scheduler and many keys have disappeared. There are four alternatives:

  1. manually delete the three main keys (in my opinion it is useless to delete the MuiCache or Store keys):
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\Piriform\ccleaner
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\unistall\ccleaner
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Piriform\Ccleaner

  2. Reinstall the 629 in the normal installable version and then uninstall it with revo uninstaller (but this way you might risk making the situation worse)

  3. Delete the keys with another portable registry cleaner, for example Wise Cleaner (which could in turn create other keys…)

  4. Leave the keys, if it is just an aesthetic problem.
    Since it is a PC that I use for work, I would not want to cause any damage.

From what you say then I believe that the automatic update will simply have done a full install of v6.29.

Could leaving those entries in the registry create problems or is it just an “aesthetic” problem? I also deleted the activities in task scheduler and many keys have disappeared. There are four alternatives:

  1. manually delete the three main keys (in my opinion it is useless to delete the MuiCache or Store keys):
  2. Reinstall the 629 in the normal installable version and then uninstall it with revo uninstaller (but this way you might risk making the situation worse)
  3. Delete the keys with another portable registry cleaner, for example Wise Cleaner (which could in turn create other keys…)
  4. Leave the keys, if it is just an aesthetic problem.
    Since it is a PC that I use for work, I would not want to cause any damage.

No installation occurred. There are no ccleaner files elsewhere on the PC and ccleaner is not listed in the application list.

I would leave the reg. keys were they are.

You could use Revo, either by reinstalling CCleaner and removing it with Revo,or by using Revos’ Forced Uninstall mode to remove the reg keys.
But there is no issue with simply leaving the registry keys there, they don’t make any appreciable difference to the size of the registry or the functioning of a machine.
Most computers have many left over or orphaned registry keys, they don’t affect anything.

On the wider topic of using the CCleaner Portable as a non-installed app:

I think that the issue here with Portable vs Installed is mostly a naming confusion/missunderstanding…
(OK as well as a lack of developer consideration about the user downloadable CCleaner portable).

Some people don’t like to install apps, instead they prefer non-installed apps.
Fair enough that is their choice to make.

However they do often have a tendency to call any app that can be used without installing it ‘Portable’, and that isn’t strictly true.
Such apps rarely if ever call themselves ‘Portable’, they generally refer to themselves as ‘non-installed’.

Whilst non-installed apps can indeed be used in a portable manner, truly ‘Portable’ apps are not meant to be on a computers drive(s) at all.
Truly ‘Portable’ apps are meant to be on a removable drive/USB stick, and only be attached to the machine briefly to do a job and then removed again once that job has been done, leaving no traces of themselves behind.

In that respect the CCleaner ‘Portable’ that you can download is a kind of halfway house.

The true CCleaner Portable is the ‘Technicians Edition’ a paid for version used for cleaning up endpoint computers in an organisation/business.

The one you can download from the builds page is more in the way of a favour for home users.
I believe that it was first created in response to user requests for a version that could be used on family and friends computers without having to install CCleaner on them.
It’s intended to be used as the Free version, because the Pro features generally need CCleaner to be installed on the machine.**
So it’s a modification of the standard version, and some of the newer features in CCleaner are less amenable to such modification.

If you do use it as intended in a portable manner on family/friends computers then that isn’t really a problem.
The CCleaner is on your stick not on their computers drive, and if it leaves a few reg. entries behind after use then so what, CCleaner isn’t there to read them.
As said above they don’t make any appreciable difference to the size of the registry or the functioning of a machine.

It’s if/when you put it on a computers drive that it will then read those reg entries and begin to behave like the Standard version.

**Automatic Updating used to be a Pro only option so would never happen to a portable Free that was put on a computers drive.
But now that Auto Updating is in the Free version too that behaviour has changed, and a portable Free put on a computers drive can auto update itself and install the update, as you found out.

Thanks for the reply !

Hi ADPP:

No, you’ve done nothing wrong. What you’re seeing is “normal” for CCleaner Free Portable. I’d suggest you go with your Option # 4 and just ignore the registry entries created by CCleaner Free Portable.

CCleaner Free Portable v6.xx has become so bloated and buggy that I’m very careful about how I use this software on my 64-bit Win computer. For example:

  • I only run CCleaner Free Portable from a removable USB stick (i.e., from a folder I created named E:\Portable\CCleaner).
  • When I update to a new version I unzip the ccleaner6xx.zip file downloaded from https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds, but I delete everything except CCleaner64.exe, portable.dat and License.txt plus my ccleaner.ini file (which contains my custom configuration settings from my previous CCleaner Free Portable version) before launching CCleaner64.exe ***. See image below.
  • All settings for automatic updating (two at Options | Update) and data telemetry (three at Option | Privacy) are DISABLED.
  • I only use the Custom Clean feature in CCleaner Free Portable, although I do occasionally use the Registry Cleaner if I need to look for stray registry entries that aren’t removed when I uninstall a program. NOTE: I never allow Health Check, Software Updater or Driver Updater to run on my system.
  • I created custom rules in my Windows Defender Firewall to block all inbound and outbound traffic for CCleaner64.exe (see the How-To Geek article How to Block An Application from Accessing the Internet with Windows Firewall) to try and prevent CCleaner Free Portable from sending telemetry back to Avast / Piriform. See my 24-Jul-2023 post in Wisewiz’s Welcome Back to CCleaner Professional? for further details.

CCleaner v6_28 64-Bit Portable Four Files Kept After Unzip 19 Oct 2024

*** NOTE: The first time you launch CCleaner64.exe this creates the \LOG and \Setup subfolders. If you use a non-English version of CCleaner do not delete the \Lang folder.


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Hi nukecad:

Have you tested this lately in CCleaner Free Portable v6.xx and confirmed that auto-updating CCleaner Free Portable run from the computer’s hard drive (i.e., not from a removable USB stick) will actually install CCleaner in C:\Program Files?

As I noted <above>, I run CCleaner Free Portable v6.xx from a removable USB stick and have automatic updating (Options | Update | Keep CCleaner Updated Auotmatically) DISABLED. In older versions of CCleaner Free Portable v5.xx if I clicked the Check for Updates link in the bottom-right corner of the user interface and it detected an available update, clicking the Update Now button would simply open my default browser and automatically direct me to an official download page - it wouldn’t actually try to download and update my CCleaner Free Portable v5.x files. From May 2021 when I was using CCleaner Free Portable v5.79:

CCleaner v5_79 Check For Updates v5_80 Found EDITED 26 May 2021

I can’t test now with CCleaner Free Portable v6.xx because I see an error when I click the Check for Updates link in the bottom-right corner of the user interface. I presume that’s because I have CCleaner64.exe traffic blocked in my firewall. Today with CCleaner Free Portable v6.28:

CCleaner v6_28 Check For Updates Error With Firewall Block 19 Oct 2024


Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5011 * Firefox v131.0.3 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24080.9-1.1.24080.9 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.11.139-1.0.5072 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.28.11297

No, I have not tested it hecause I already have CCleaner installed, Pro on my main machine, Free on the other.

I’m going off what has been said in these threads over the past few years, and what I know of how the installed CCleaner works nowadays.

It is my opinion that it is the ‘newer’ additions to CC since they started with Quick Clean/Easy Clean and then went on through the updaters and optimiser (and auto updating in Free) that has changed how the downloadable portable functions if used as a ‘non-installed’ rather than as a portable on USB.

To me it appears that all of those ‘newer’ functions have simply assumed that CCleaner would always be installed and so gave no consideration at all about possible use as a non-installed.

I could be wrong, but I very much doubt it.

Thanks again for the precious answer. One last doubt. If I buy revo unistaller pro, which has the forced uninstall mode, will I be able to remove everything? I had this doubt, because in reality there was no real installation of the program. The files and dll are all in the original folder. Second doubt. If I simply delete the folder from the PC, would anything installed on the PC remain (in addition to the registry entries)? Would any process or service remain? I don’t want to use ccleaner anymore in the future and I would like to make sure that it doesn’t somehow remain installed.

Hi ADPP:

I can think of at least one location, other than the garbage that would be left behind in the registry. If you open your Task Scheduler you will likely find a task named CCleanerSkipUAC (which is related to the CCleaner setting at Options | Advanced | Skip User Account Control Warning). You would have to right-click that task and select Delete.

I just checked my hidden C:\Users<myusername>\AppData\Local folder and I can’t see any files or folders created there by CCleaner Free Portable v6.xx, but that might be because of the way I’ve configured my settings so I’d check the entire C:\Users<myusername>\AppData\ folder just to be certain.


Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5011 * Firefox v131.0.3 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24080.9-1.1.24080.9 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.11.139-1.0.5072 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * CCleaner Free Portable v6.28.11297