HKLM and HKCU startup keys with same name

[Disassembler]

When you have HKLM and HKCU startup keys with same name, CCleaner sees only the HKCU one. Also, disabling, (refreshing) and re-enabling is broken that way.

 

Try import following to registry

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"test"="\"C:\\some\\dir\\somefile.exe\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"test"="\"C:\\some\\other\\dir\\somefile.exe\""

And then see what CCleaner shows you.

 

I'm using CCleaner v2.34 on Win7 x64

[Andavari]

Probably a bug. However in Windows if the key is in HKLM it shouldn't need to also be in HKCU.

[Disassembler]

Yeah, I know that there shouldn't be duplicates, but there are some occasions when this happens

 

1) Updating app with crappy installer to newer version. Old version has key in HKLM, new has it in HKCU, but nor installer, neither app itself deletes the old one.

2) Company "administrator" presets startup apps for new (not yet created) users in HKLM, but when the new user is created and app starts, it checks in it's INI that it should have key in HKCU and create duplicate. I know that there are dozens of more convinient ways how to achieve this (eg. HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT), but employees are usually little short at this, because IT dept. always knows better. :/

3) Accidentaly (or deliberately) setting same key name for two different executables. Some mobile phone suites has it this way.

 

Aditionally, this bug can be abused by setting HKLM key (with same name as HKCU) to some undesired executable. But when the user wants to see what his computer executes at startup and he uses CCleaner, he will see only HKCU and he won't have a clue.

[Guest MrT]

Thanks. We'll look into this.