Registry Cleaning Hazard for multiple users.

[Alan_B]

Using XP + SP2, my daughter and I have separate profiles and cannot see one-another's documents.

 

I am administrator and use CCleaner to purge junk.

 

To purge my daughter's junk, she logged in so I could add CCleaner to her Start-up list, and I unchecked almost everything so she only purged her own private Temp files etc.

 

Although I had no intention of asking her to clean the registry, out of curiosity I looked to see what it was prepared to do. I was horrified.

Although 10 minutes earlier I had used my account to purge all junk files, and had scanned the registry and found zero issues, using her account the registry scan found :-

15 off "Missing Shared DLLs";

28 off "Installer".

I immediately unchecked these possibilities, just in case she ever accidentally launched a registry scan.

She is a User without administrator privileges, so Windows security settings should not allow CCleaner in her profile to damage the Registry, but what do I know, Murphy's Law always kicks in when you are not looking, and doubly so with Windows.

 

After she logged out, I logged in to my profile, and then looked at what CCleaner objected to in her profile.

 

Registry Key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDlls

15 off items, all with data designating assorted subfolders and files such as

\Working\Shortcuts\Sunset.jpg

\Solving\Backup\Flyer.doc

\Structure\Searching\Find This File.txt

etc. etc.

all of these 15 were in one common folder

C:\Documents and Settings\Dad\My Documents\Microsoft Press\Microsoft Windows XP SBS\

 

Registry Key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Folders

28 off items, the first designates

C:\Documents and Settings\Dad\My Documents\Microsoft Press\

The other 27 items designate each of 27 sub-folder and sub-sub-folders etc of the above.

 

I strongly recommend that you protect against registry damage.

Please note that using my daughter's profile :-

Windows Explorer can select "C:\Documents and Settings\Dad" - which is myself !!!

A double left click fails to open my profile, but gets "Access is denied";

A Right click then properties shows that this folder holds absolute zero, an underestimate by 327 MB !!!

 

I suggest that when CCleaner finds any "Missing Shared DLLs" or "Installer" issues it should NOT select as an "issue" until a further sanity check.

CCleaner should check every item in the sub-directory path from the root of the drive to where this "dll" or "installer" should be.

If CCleaner proceeds to a level at which "Access is denied" it should back-off - it is looking for something that is not accessible, either because it is venturing into a different user's profile, or because of other strange and wonderful things one gets with Windows !!!

Only if CCleaner gets to a level at which the "next" level / item is absent, and it has not passed through any "Access is Denied" red flags, should it then designate this as an issue to fix.

 

n.b. Of these 28 folders, a few hold absolutely nothing, and only one holds a solitary *.exe file, and all the rest hold only a few *.wma and *.jpg and *.doc files - not a single *.dll anywhere.

 

If anyone is interested, this aggravation came via a "default" installation from a "Teach Yourself" type of CD that came with a book called "Microsoft Windows XP Step by Step". They do refer to user accounts. They SHOULD have known better and had the decency to allow ALL users to learn, and installed everything in a common public profile such as "All Users" or "Default User", instead of installing in my private folder and excluding all other users.

 

Sorry but I cannot resist a mini rant.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDlls holds over 2100 items, most of which are *.dll or *.exe. Other than these 15 insane "...\Microsoft Press\" items there are absolutely no other *.doc files, and only one of each *.txt and *wma files.

For Microsoft Press to dump their peculiar files in my private profile, and then pollute the registry by declaring them to be shared dlls, and to add "installer" references to every folder is a little strange.

I am sure there must be a good reason for what they did. Forgive my ignorance but all I can think is :-

1) Future diversification into the Registry Cleaning Tool business, so a clever booby trap to cause existing Registry Cleaners to fail; or

2) Legend has it that a large number of monkeys eventually typed the complete works of Shakespeare. After that I guess some-one had to employ them as software coders !!!

End of rant - I do feel better now.

 

Alan

[davey]

Using XP + SP2, my daughter and I have separate profiles and cannot see one-another's documents.

 

I am administrator and use CCleaner to purge junk.

 

To purge my daughter's junk, she logged in so I could add CCleaner to her Start-up list, and I unchecked almost everything so she only purged her own private Temp files etc.

 

Alan

Hi Alan,

That was a "good catch".

That is why I want CCleaner to have some way of locking certain options.

It ia also why I advise inexperienced users not to do registry cleaning until they learn more.

Thanks for you information.Many other users can benefit from it.

davey