Registry Tool & User Accounts

[Miss M]

Hi! I couldn't find a thread about this, and I couldn't find it in the docs. I know that CCleaner needs to be run in each user profile, but does the registry cleaner need to as well? Or do you just run that from one account and it takes care of the whole thing?

 

Thank you!!

[Ishi]

I believe that only a section of the registry is divided for each user but not the whole thing itself so if you do a scan, that would scan the entire registry including those relevant to other user accounts besides the one you use.

[marmite]

... if you do a scan, that would scan the entire registry including those relevant to other user accounts besides the one you use.

I'd be surprised if the reg cleaner loaded the Local User hives for each profile. However (not /) cleaning the other LU hives isn't going to affect anything in the current user - so it's not really much to worry about.

 

ETA: Good point by the way Miss M; many people think about running CCleaner in different profiles, but the reg cleaning behaviour is rarely mentioned.

[Miss M]

I really appreciate your replies, Ishi and Marmite! I guess what I'll do is run the registry cleaner in the profile that has some admin privileges, then run it in the other profiles and see if it finds anything else. I'll post my findings afterward.

 

(Hmmm... I wonder if I enabled the Admin account and ran it from there, if it would have a better chance of doing it all...)

 

That's going to be at least a few days... I have to finish disinfecting this thing first. I'm working on a friend's computer... the one the teenage kids played on over at grandma's house, so... you can just imagine...

 

Thank you again! I'll let you know what happens.

[Nergal]

as It cleans HKCurrentUser i'm gonna guess it cleans only current user for the following

(Note this may differ per OS I'm using windows 7)

Most (not all) unused file ext

Some Obsolete software

Some Run at startup

maybe startmenu ordering

maybe MUI Cache

[Miss M]

as It cleans HKCurrentUser i'm gonna guess it cleans only current user for the following

(Note this may differ per OS I'm using windows 7)

Most (not all) unused file ext

Some Obsolete software

Some Run at startup

maybe startmenu ordering

maybe MUI Cache

 

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks! I'll be getting to CCleaner after I uninstall some of this bloatware that's clogging up her computer.

[marmite]

CCleaner makes no attempt to enumerate all of the user profiles for the other CCleaner functions so it makes sense that it's only going to do the current user. If you look at the registry scan analysis you'll see HKCU (which of course by definition is current user only) along with the other hives, but nothing for other profiles. So I think it's a fairly safe assumption.

 

In a corporate environment this is the behaviour you would expect by default anyway - you wouldn't want to be messing around with other users profiles 'accidentally'.

[Alan_B]

WARNING - multiple profiles are dangerous.

 

After an ERUNT backup I very cautiously found that no damage was done by a full clean of the registry.

 

The entire system was clean.

I logged out and my daughter logged in to her account.

A registry scan showed that various things needed fixing in her registry hive.

ALSO

It wanted to clear out from the HKLM hive some obsolete stuff that was not installed.

ACTUALLY

That stuff was installed - it is just that the idiot installer chose to plant the executables in my personal profile.

I suspect they hoped to sell two products, one copy for each user ! !

My daughter's profile had no access to the executables,

and Ccleaner could not see them from her profile either, so it thought they had been un-installed.

 

Alan

[marmite]

Thanks Alan, that's a very interesting anecdote and should serve as something of a warning.

 

There are two possible problem areas there, the installer in question and CCleaner's registry cleaner. Without knowing exactly what the flagged registry entries were it's hard to apportion blame - it may be a crap installer and/or it may be that there are some scenarios that CCleaner doesn't properly cater for.

 

It just shows how important it is to be aware of you own machine's configuration, as you clearly are. It's also a bit of a poke in the eye for the "I want to be able to clean the registry on /AUTO" brigade.

 

The one thing I would strongly disagree with is your headliner ... multiple profiles are not inherently "dangerous" ... it's just down to how you manage your PC! Reg. cleaning a machine multiple profiles ... now there's where the care is clearly needed.

[Alan_B]

The product in question was something like "Teach Yourself XP" published by Microsoft Press.

 

I was given a thick book with a tutorial CD when I was "upgraded" from Win 98 to XP.

 

How was I to know that it would dump all its code into my private profile, but not restrict its keys to my HKCU ?

(not that I knew what an HKCU was at that time)

 

Sorry, my headline was more for impact than accuracy ! !

 

I actually control the cleansing on my system by unzipping the portable version to a folder accessible to all.

I ran CCleaner and configured it with most things enabled - but not too exciting.

I closed CCleaner and copied Ccleaner.ini as ALAN.INI

I ran CCleaner with most things disabled.

I closed CCleaner and copied Ccleaner.ini as DEFAULT.INI

 

I have a CLEAN.CMD script that accepts arguments %1 %2 %3

If %1==ALAN then the script copies ALAN.INI as Ccleaner.ini,

otherwise it copies DEFAULT.INI as Ccleaner.ini,

and then it launches "Ccleaner %2 %3"

 

An All User desktop Shortcut called SHUTDOWN launches "CLEAN.CMD - /AUTO /SHUTDOWN"

This uses the very safe DEFAULT.INI and runs "Ccleaner /AUTO /SHUTDOWN".

 

We both use this at the end of the day so our private profile junk is not eating up disk space the other user might need.

 

Another shortcut launches "CLEAN.CMD %USERNAME%"

So long as I have logged in then I have the benefit of ALAN.INI, with strong cleansing available;

but always analysed and scrutinized before cleansing - never with /AUTO etc.

 

Alan