Updated delete for Vista/7

[Super Fast]

In CCleaner, the add files/folders to the includes option does not properly work when running Vista or 7.

 

In XP, it works great, but attempting to add a shortcut results in the actual folder or file it references back to being included, instead of the shortcut!

Drag & drop no longer works under Vista/7.

 

I brought this back up, because I was thinking about what someone said earlier, blaming it on how Windows handles things.

But uninstallers work fine in Vista & also 7.

 

So, if they have no trouble deleting shortcuts, why should CCleaner have that problem?

Anyone got an answer? Surely the whiz bang geniuses can give us a solution! I got faith in you guys! I have folders I need to periodically empty, but I cannot add them in 7! Now I feel like a dummy! LOL!

 

Please fix this, please, please, please!

You guys are awesome!

 

Thanks!

[Alan_B]

It may be worth posting a couple of lines from you "Includes" section,

and also investigating whether the paths (via any desktop shortcut) to the file/folder involve going through Reparse Points.

 

Reparse points are used to "redirect" XP type paths such as "Documents and Settings"

 

It has caused me some grief (unrelated to your problem) that any such path can misfire for normal deletion,

and I am sure that secure deletion is a whole new can of worms.

[Super Fast]

It may be worth posting a couple of lines from you "Includes" section,

and also investigating whether the paths (via any desktop shortcut) to the file/folder involve going through Reparse Points.

 

Reparse points are used to "redirect" XP type paths such as "Documents and Settings"

 

It has caused me some grief (unrelated to your problem) that any such path can misfire for normal deletion,

and I am sure that secure deletion is a whole new can of worms.

 

Well, that is bad, to be sure!

But surely, something can be done about it!

 

I mean, it IS possible to delete shortcuts, else uninstaller programs would not be able to do so.

Surely, there must be a way to treat a shortcut in a similar manner to how an uninstaller does?

 

Just a simple text file with the location to delete, & delete the shortcut?

Surely, if CCleaner functionality were "altered" slightly, it could be made to simply write the actual folder/files dropped onto it, rather than seek the file(s)/folder referenced by the shortcut?

 

If deleting shortcuts is truly impossible, how do simple un-installers do it with their text file detailing shortcut locations, then they remove only what is listed, be it shortcut/file/folder?

 

Maybe I am missing something here, & I do understand what you are saying, but it just seems unlogical to just blame it entirely on windows & say deleting shortcuts is impossible. If that were the case, how do uninstallers remove shortcuts, since they should (theoretically) remove the files/folders instead because of the reparse points?

 

Hope you can shed more light on this.

 

Thank you!

[Alan_B]

 

If deleting shortcuts is truly impossible, how do simple un-installers do it with their text file detailing shortcut locations, then they remove only what is listed, be it shortcut/file/folder?

 

Hope you can shed more light on this.

 

 

Un-installers are NOT always lucky.

It depends upon the nature of the permission restriction that was applied to the Reparse Point

I prefer to refer to Reparse Points as Black Holes - what goes in does not come back ! !

E.G.....

Send a file to the XP type destination "C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data" and that does NOT exist in W7,

but a Reparse Point is lying in wait and will redirect your file to the W7 equivalent folder.

 

There are all sorts of permissions restrictions, E.G. Testing \WINDOWS with the DOS CACLS command yields

C:\>CACLS \WINDOWS
C:\Windows NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller:F
          NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller:(CI)(IO)F
          NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:C
          NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(OI)(CI)(IO)F
          BUILTIN\Administrators:C
          BUILTIN\Administrators:(OI)(CI)(IO)F
          BUILTIN\Users:R
          BUILTIN\Users:(OI)(CI)(IO)(special access:)
                                    GENERIC_READ
                                    GENERIC_EXECUTE

I have seen XP has about 2 dozen DIFFERENT special access permissions of the type GENERIC_???????.

All a USER without admin privileges is allowed to do to Windows system files is read and execute,

but he cannot modify or delete.

 

I do not know how many extra GENERIC_??????? levels there are in W7.

By default Administrators have FULL authority to change system files,

but are greatly restricted in what they can do via Reparse Points,

and different Reparse Points have different restrictions.

 

Here is a Black Hole :-

"C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\"

That works properly in XP, and is a perverted disaster in W7

The correct path is actually %APPDATA% which works perfectly for both XP and W7

 

Simple experiment :-

Can you guess how many extra items will appear the second time you type "DIR %APPDATA%\A*" in the sequence below ?

CD \
DIR %APPDATA%\A*
ECHO 1 - %TIME% >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
ECHO 2 - %TIME% >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
TYPE "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
DEL "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
DIR "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\A*"
DIR %APPDATA%\A*
TYPE %APPDATA%\ALAN_TEST.TXT
DEL %APPDATA%\ALAN_TEST.TXT

 

No peeking - I will post the answer in a minute

[Alan_B]

The following shows that two different time stamps were sent into my profile via the path "C:\Docum....

and using that same path they could NOT be accessed by TYPE or DIR, nor DELETED.

but they successfully created and then appended to %APPDATA%,

and I have full access to those time stamps via %APDATA%

 

These Black Holes cause difficulty when purging the remnants after uninstalling security software,

when you have to use the correct NON-BlackHole paths for Windows 7.

 

I believe these Black Holes are responsible for problems such as

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=29618

and

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=30095

 

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Alan>CD \

C:\>DIR %APPDATA%\A*
Volume in drive C is Primary Hard Drive
Volume Serial Number is 3E16-BCE7

Directory of C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming

04/02/2011  18:11    <DIR>          Adobe
              0 File(s)              0 bytes
              1 Dir(s)  36,008,050,688 bytes free

C:\>ECHO 1 - %TIME% >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"

C:\>ECHO 2 - %TIME% >> "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"

C:\>TYPE "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
Access is denied.

C:\>DEL "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT"
Could Not Find C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\ALAN_TEST.TXT

C:\>DIR "C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data\A*"
Volume in drive C is Primary Hard Drive
Volume Serial Number is 3E16-BCE7

Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data

File Not Found

C:\>DIR %APPDATA%\A*
Volume in drive C is Primary Hard Drive
Volume Serial Number is 3E16-BCE7

Directory of C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming

04/02/2011  18:11    <DIR>          Adobe
14/03/2011  12:21                36 ALAN_TEST.TXT
              1 File(s)             36 bytes
              1 Dir(s)  36,008,050,688 bytes free

C:\>TYPE %APPDATA%\ALAN_TEST.TXT
1 - 12:21:54.56
2 - 12:21:54.57

C:\>DEL %APPDATA%\ALAN_TEST.TXT

C:\>DIR %APPDATA%\A*
Volume in drive C is Primary Hard Drive
Volume Serial Number is 3E16-BCE7

Directory of C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming

04/02/2011  18:11    <DIR>          Adobe
              0 File(s)              0 bytes
              1 Dir(s)  36,008,050,688 bytes free

C:\>

[Nergal]

I think I understand what you are asking

 

are you trying to add a shortcut (such as the shortcut created on the desktop for programs such as quicktime or acrobat reader)?

 

if so once you've added the include/exclude (and it suddenly says the exe instead)

 

1) right click the include/exclude entry

2) Choose manually edit

3) Change the entry to "%userprofile%\desktop\{filename}.lnk" without the quotes, replacing %userprofile%\desktop with where ever the shortcut is and {filename} with the name of the shortcut (such as "quicktimemedia.exe-shortcut). The important piece of this is .lnk (LNK)

[Super Fast]

I think I understand what you are asking

 

are you trying to add a shortcut (such as the shortcut created on the desktop for programs such as quicktime or acrobat reader)?

 

if so once you've added the include/exclude (and it suddenly says the exe instead)

 

1) right click the include/exclude entry

2) Choose manually edit

3) Change the entry to "%userprofile%\desktop\{filename}.lnk" without the quotes, replacing %userprofile%\desktop with where ever the shortcut is and {filename} with the name of the shortcut (such as "quicktimemedia.exe-shortcut). The important piece of this is .lnk (LNK)

Hmmm.... That just may work!

 

I am going to try it sometime!

Thanks, Nerg!

 

If your not a genius, I don't know who is! Haha! Hope you can find some kind of genius way to fix the drag & drop in 7 though. I miss that a lot! I should have known, if you can't do it, who else can?

 

P.S. Allan, I am going to also check up on the reparse stuff as well. Very good info your giving. I always use relative paths when setting files for extraction, anyway, Example: "%Appdata%\Mozilla Firefox" / %programfiles% etc, etc. I don't use hard links & haven't for a long time due the problems they cause.

 

Oh, n, sorry for all the questions, but WinRar SFX can do a LOT of amazing things. But I'd love to know which installer program you use for Piriform products? It is clean & simple. Haven't had time to check lately, but I know there are various ones such as Inno Setup, NSIS, WinRar SFX, Spoon Installer, Create Install, etc

[Super Fast]

I think I understand what you are asking

 

are you trying to add a shortcut (such as the shortcut created on the desktop for programs such as quicktime or acrobat reader)?

 

if so once you've added the include/exclude (and it suddenly says the exe instead)

 

1) right click the include/exclude entry

2) Choose manually edit

3) Change the entry to "%userprofile%\desktop\{filename}.lnk" without the quotes, replacing %userprofile%\desktop with where ever the shortcut is and {filename} with the name of the shortcut (such as "quicktimemedia.exe-shortcut). The important piece of this is .lnk (LNK)

 

Ok, no such luck!

Windows 7 had the file "locked in", or that is to say, I could not change the folder path to a .LNK when I tried to edit the file path! It was just not possible!

I do hope this gets fixed, cause, well, it is such a nice feature!

 

Thanks!

[Alan_B]

Ok, no such luck!

Windows 7 had the file "locked in", or that is to say, I could not change the folder path to a .LNK when I tried to edit the file path! It was just not possible!

I do hope this gets fixed, cause, well, it is such a nice feature!

 

Thanks!

 

Must try harder - with apologies to those still traumatised by teacher's school reports ! !

 

Windows 7 does NOT lock in the file.

It its how you are using the CCleaner GUI, and that is easy to overcome.

As standard CC uses the registry, but you can save settings to INI and edit CCleaner.INI.

I use the portable CC so INI was ready for me and I added the line

Include10=PATH|C:\Users\Alan\Desktop\TeraCopy2.lnk

No problem. I can do anything by editing the INI file !

 

You do NOT have to Save settings to INI.

You CAN use the GUI.

Having fixed the Include I used the GUI and found the expected display of

C:\Users\Alan\Desktop\TeraCopy2.lnk

But when I selected that item and hit the EDIT button I found

Option :- Drive or Folder, and the selected item was

C:\Users\Alan\Desktop\

and further down

Option :- File Types, and the selected type was

TeraCopy2.lnk

 

N.B. CC hits the intended link so long as the desktop displays the correct name of the target,

in my example "TeraCopy2", but "Teracopy2.exe.lnk" is a total mismatch and does NOT work.

 

N.B. I never knew how to do this via the GUI until I saw how the GUI displayed my INI file

[Nergal]

? are you sure the file is on your desktop and not the "all users" desktop ?

[Super Fast]

? are you sure the file is on your desktop and not the "all users" desktop ?

Thought it was!

 

Maybe Alan's method will work.

 

Will try it when I get time.

Meanwhile, sigh, such a nice thing if the GUI works in 7!

 

LOL!

 

Will try to update when I get chance to test!

Must test both ideas!