Cannot Prevent Smart Monitor From Running - Oh, and a good rant...

[Dave Goober]

You have to understand that not all users want background processes running without their permission, especially when they know these processes serve no real purpose other than keeping your software involved with more than it needs to be. When this was first introduced (after the parent company who shall not be named) acquired Piriform, it was annoying, but at least there was a way to prevent it. Then that option was sneakily removed, though the false framework is still in place to make it look like you have an option, you just don't.  I tried removing the startup task, but every time I log back into windows, I'm greeted with CCleaner crying to be let back in to the party.

I'm over this. CCleaner was at the top of the list for must-have software for me and my clients. IT's obtrusive, annoying, and bloody depressing the software you could once rely on is now expected to go completely the other way. It's as though it's malicious now.

 

Seriously, you people can't be that stupid. There must be something more to this. The people you are targeting don't exist. No one outside the tech community knows what CCleaner is (unless their tech left it in there for them). So you're left with us. Technicians that once used this product on every PC they worked with, Sometimes they'd have their clients purchase a license. Sometimes not. So that it. You;re pissing off the only people that ever loved you.

This is what you need to redeem yourself...

1.   Make you goal to provide a technician with a tool to HELP (not mandate) make a client's machine as clean and efficient as possible.
2.   Remove ALL promotion, including self promotion. We're not dullards, we know you have a paid product available, and if you want to promote it, send an email please.
3.   Remove the dummy tweaks set by default. If we want to dumb-down the experience for any reason, make that option an OPTION, not a default.
4.   Stop scurrying around like little sneaks tweaking the software to make it less customizable. If you spent 1/8th of the time developing bulletproof software that does what the majority of tech wants it to do, rather than creating roadblocks preventing the software from being used the way WE (yes, I'm well aware of who WE are, and I bloody well guarantee I have this sighted in with precision) want it to be used; IT WILL SELL ITSELF.

I can't even remember when I started using this software, but it goes back to 2009 at least. I've stuck with you through the transition, as I thought you'd come to your senses eventually. I can't imagine you have a very good feeling, overall, of how your base feel about the direction you've gone in. I'm not going to hot your with a vapid threat of leaving you, I know you don't care...

Don't bother with the bullet-point breakdown explaining how and why everything is as it is, or how I don't understand this or that. I've been at this too long, we all know what's going on here.

[nukecad]

7 hours ago, Dave Goober said:

.... every time I log back into windows, I'm greeted with CCleaner crying to be let back in to the party.

I'm not sure just what you mean by that, if you mean something else then let us know - but I suspect that you are talking about the CCleaner icon in the Sytem Tray?

If so they you are the second this week to raise this query, and it isn't Smart Cleaning that is putting the icon there.

"Keep CCleaner Updated Automatically", which was recently added as a bonus to CCleaner Free, now also runs a different background task if it is enabled and so Windows puts an icon in the tray.

If you turn off Automatic Updating then the icon should disappear as it did for that other user earlier this week:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/60331-smart-cleaning-starts-with-windows-even-when-disabled/?tab=comments#comment-328448

 

However there is a very slight possibility that you are one of those few (around 4 posts were made about it) who were affected by a rare glitch with Windows Task Scheduler.
If so then you should have been first affected back in November (and presumably hadn't noticed until now).
If you have been affected by that rare Task Scheduler glitch then this link tells you how to fix it:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/59567-cleaner-5748198-runs-smart-cleaning-even-though-i-unchecked-smart-cleaning/?tab=comments#comment-325149

 

I've had a rant or two at Piriform myself in the past. (And I admit at least one of them was my missunderstanding.)
But this is a user forum and as users we can only advise you, if you choose not to take that advice then that is your choice.