Combining Folders

[Hellbovine]

Hello,

 

I am trying to put together a cd that contains several quick-use no install applications. I have chosen to use Crap Cleaner Portable, and Defraggler Portable.

 

They work great, but what I would like to do, is have them both in the same root directory. When I select each of their folder's contents and then paste them into an area there are only 3 files that have an issue. "Lang" "License" and "Portable.Dat"

 

1) "Lang" one of the programs has more than the other, but they both share similar names. Would it be safe to combine them all?

 

2) "License" Do either of the programs actually reference this license text in anyway? Via the "Help" or "About" or other options within the program. If not then I could delete these since it is for my personal use, and I do agree with the license?

 

3) "Portable.Dat" I tried using Crap Cleaner's .dat for Defraggler, and the program still worked? What is this file for, and is there a way around having both files in the same directory with the same name?

 

Thank you for your help!

[Ishi]

The truth is that when I installed CCleaner portable on my USB, I deleted all the other extracted files including the langs, license and portable.dat, except the application launcher which is the CCleaner icon but is not a shortcut and still I was able to launch CCleaner portable from my USB. I did the same thing on a friend's USB and even without those langs, license and portable.dat, CCleaner portable always opens from that USB and mine.

 

I think you can install and use both CCleaner portable and Defraggler portable on a CD or USB even if you delete all those other extracted files namely those langs, license and portable.dat and those portable programs should still work.

So, I guess you do not need to worry about combining the folder contents of CCleaner Portable and Defraggler Portable if you can simply delete those folder contents.

[Alan_B]

I think the actual presence of portable.dat is a signal to never ever touch the registry,

Therefore only one is needed to ensure registry protection from all portable Piriform applications.

 

If the portable.dat is absent, and CCleaner.ini is present, then there is probably little effect on the registry - perhaps.

 

If neither portable.dat or CCleaner.ini are present there is a good chance the registry will be used.

 

Alan

[Nergal]

both portable.dat are indentical (both plain text files which simply state #PORTABLE#)so it should not be a problem to erase one. I think they are throw backs from when CCleaner was 1.x but MR T. may have to answer that one.

 

lang file (if you want english) can all be deleted, same with license

[Hellbovine]

Okay, so i'm a little confused about Alan's reply.

 

So if I delete everything but the actual Ccleaner application, and then I run it, your saying that it might add itself to the registry? or that it won't properly clean the registry correctly?

 

Just for the heck of it, I tried such thing, I deleted everything and launched the cleaner, ran a full clean, all options checked, and full reg scan. And from the surface it didn't seem to clean, or act any differently than normal.

 

However, I don't want to be destroying something beneath the surface. Could someone clarify a bit more please?

 

Also, the two .dat files are of different file sizes. If they both contain the same data, why would they be different?

 

Thanks for the replies!

[Nergal]

it will write to the registry or create a new CCleaner.ini

 

Below picture compares the two files and shows as identical. and both are only 1kb big

[Alan_B]

"your saying that it might add itself to the registry?"

Perhaps, depending upon how well CC is defended against inappropriate choices.

 

You chose to download the Portable version. I made the same choice.

There are 3 things that should stop it from using the registry :-

Presence of Portable.dat

Options / Advanced / Save all settings to INI file,

An INI file that has that setting checked.

 

I cannot uncheck the INI option - it is greyed in. - no manual over-ride.

If this is hard coded into the download, it should never hit the registry.

If absence of the INI and DAT files UN-greys the option it might allow manual over-ride, or even UN-check it.

 

If you want to keep it from using the registry - just follow the precautions,

Removing INI and DAT is something I cannot predict, and what it does to me could be different for you.

 

-------------------------

 

"However, I don't want to be destroying something beneath the surface."

That will not damage Windows. I think it extremely unlikely that anything bad will happen.

 

If CC was a M.$ product then disaster follows the slightest deviations from how they think you should use it.

I have more respect for Piriform.

The worst situation I can think of that by doing enough peculiar things you will have settings in both and INI file and also the registry, and your choices may be different.

CC should still use just one set of choices, but it may be the "wrong" set if you cause too much confusion.

In theory it is possible you could confuse CC so much that it uses both sets, which again does no harm if each set was identical, but if the INI set and the Registry set are different, then you might have a conflicting "mix and UN-match" tangle

 

-------------------------

 

Possible reason for different sizes of identical files :-

Portable.dat holds the text

#PORTABLE#

That is 10 characters that each consume ink when printed.

There are no trailing spaces.

There are no blank lines.

There is not even a Carriage Return or Line Feed to show end of line.

Not even a Ctrl-Z to denote end of file - I go back a bit ! !

 

If I right click and look at properties it will show

Size:				   10 bytes (10 bytes)
Size on disk:		   4.00 KB (4,096 bytes)
**************  OR IT MIGHT SHOW ************
Size:				   22 bytes (22 bytes)
Size on disk:		   4.00 KB (4,096 bytes)

10 characters can be held in a 10 byte file with ANSI encoding; or

22 bytes with UNICODE encoding; or

22 bytes with UNICODE big endian encoding; or

13 bytes with UTF-8 encoding.

 

If you right click and "Open with Notepad" (do NOT use Wordpad)

you can then "File / Save as..."

and that will show the encoding of the file you have opened, and allows you to write back with a different encoding.

 

The "Size on Disk" shows that my system allocates disk space in blocks of 4096 bytes,

most of which is wasted with a 10 byte file.

 

Many old programs were only able to read/write ANSI.

Most applications in this century can also cope with Unicode.

 

It is possible that two files can have different encoding and still be reported as identical because the text is the same.

Your two applications may have different encoding - hence different sizes, but WordPad wont know the difference.

 

I like Q-Dir, much better than Windows Explorer.

Q-Dir shows the file size as 10 byte (or 13 or 22)

W.E. shows it as 1 KB because it always rounds up to the nearest KB.

 

Regards

Alan

[Nergal]

A'ight, do to some testing with Speccy I have a definite answer for us all

 

Portable.dat is indeed the same for all Piriform Programs

it forced the app into ini usage and greys out the ability to change this setting

 

and yes it does work for speccy

so you could keep all of your piriform programs in the same folder with one Portable.dat and all will be forced to use ini