[Solved/workround] CC 6.x not starting on standard account

[Pit99]

OS: Win 10 Pro 22H2
AV: built in (Defender)
Installer (free version):
  ccsetup604_slim.exe, downloaded 11 Oct 2022
  ccsetup605_slim.exe, downloaded 28 Oct 2022

CC does not start on standard account, starts on admin account only

1st attempt: installed over old version (as usual)
2nd attempt: removed old version, then fresh install

Same result in both cases.

Does not start in debug mode on standard account, no log file created.
CC appears for less than a second in task manager.

The reason seems to be that there is no write access to
C:\Program Files\CCleaner on standard account (for file gc_...dll?).

Switched back to 5.9x for now.

Thank you.

Pit

 

[nukecad]

The change of  access rights for the CCleaner folder(s) affects Admin accounts also, but maybe not to the same extent as a non-admin account.

I believe that it was done as a security measure.

I wasn't aware though that it could affect the normal running of CCleaner in a non-admin account, that hasn't been reported before.

I note that you have the recent upgrade to 22H2 so am wondering if that may have something to do with it. Could you run from the user account when you had your previous Windows version?

I assume that you are installing CCleaner in the Admin account?

If you have a CCleaner Pro licence you can clean other user accounts from an Admin account. (or at least you should be able to).

 

I'll have a play (do some testing) later when I get time, I'll need to set up one or more non-admin accounts on this machine.
If I don't find anything on this 21H2 machine I do have another laptop with 22H2, so may have to do things twice.

[nukecad]

First results.

I created a non-admin user account on my 21H2 machine and logged into it.
As you can see from this screenshot CCleaner v6.05 ran and cleaned sucessfully.
Both Health Check and Custom Clean worked as normal.

To show it's a standard account it wouldn't run the Perfomance Optimiser, that's as expected because you need to be an Admin to do that.

 

I'll try the same on a 22H2 machine later.

PS. After doing the above I deliberately created some more Junk, ran Edge, etc, in the standard account.
Switching back to the Admin account and running CCleaner from there with 'All users' selected cleaned the standard account as it should.

[Pit99]

Thank you for your reply.

To answer your questions:

- I installed CC on non-admin account (as usual over years); then, of course,
  granted admin rights when UAC pops up.
- With 6.04 the OS was on rev 21H2, with 6.05 now on 22H2, same result.
- It is the free version, so I can't try "all users".

What I see is, that on start on admin account (and also on start of the
portable version) a file gc_...dll is created in the program's folder,
which disappears after a second or so.

On non-admin account there is no write access to that folder, so that
may cancel the start.

For testing, I gave the folder full access on non-admin account (which can't
be a final solution), and CC 6.x runs.

 

[Pit99]

Meanwhile I tried:

- logged in as admin, installed ccsetup605_slim.exe over 5.91, 6.05 runs;
  logged in as non-admin, 6.05 doesn't start, re-installed 5.91
- installed ccsetup605_slim.exe on another notebook with 21H2 (on non-admin
  account), 6.05 doesn't start, re-installed 5.91

 

[nukecad]

Thanks for all that.

Knew I shouldn't have deleted the non-admin account yet, LOL.

I'll set one up again and install CCleaner free on it and see what I can from there. I'll probably do it on the 22H2 machine but that won't be until tomorrow now, I'm currently on my second pint in the pub.

Just to note that it doesn't matter if it's the slim or standard installer, both install the same CCleaner.

I was previously aware of the permission changes to the CCleaner folder, and had asked the staff about it because I sometimes want to manually edit files in there as part of testing things. I wasn't aware of it causing any problems with running CCleaner itself though, so if it is then it should be fixed even if it's only affecting a few people.

Of course it may be a 22H2 problem, but you say it was the same on 21H2 so maybe not.

Just another question- which antivirus are you using if not just Windows? If it's a 3rd party AV then what version is it at?.

[Pit99]

Sorry, forgot to mention: no 3rd party AV, only built-in defender.

Thanks for now, enjoy your weekend (and your beer)  :)

Pit

 

[nukecad]

I've tried it now on 22H2 and got some interesting results, and a possible workround for you.

I can reliably replicate what you are seeing, and I can get round it quite easily.

The testing I did:

I created a new standard user and installed CCleaner Free from that user account (admin password req'd of course).
I didn't open it from the installer when it asked.
After installation CCleaner wouldn't open.
Uninstalled (and cleaned up using Revo).

Installed CCleaner again as the standard user, (admin password req'd), but this time I opened it as the last step when the installer asked.
It opened from the installer and ran normally, I closed CCleaner.
It would then open as normal for the standard user from the desktop icon, and also from the exe in File Explorer.
Uninstalled (and cleaned up using Revo).

To test it a bit more:

I signed out of the standard account, logged back in as Admin and installed CCleaner from there, I didn't run it from the installer.
Logged out, and back into the standard account.
CCleaner would not open for the standard user.

Back to the Admin account, (and a quick double check that CCleaner ran there as normal, it did).
Uninstalled (and cleaned up using Revo).
Installed from the admin account again but this time I ran CCleaner from the installer when it asked.
Logged out and back into the standard account.
CCleaner would open from the desktop and from File Explorer as normal for the standard user.

So the solution appears to be that if you want a standard user to be able to use CCleaner then you now have to run it from the installer first time when installing.
If you don't do that then it won't run for a non-admin user.

I've not tried to replicate it again on 21H2 but I assume it will be the same.
 

It appears that running CCleaner initially from within the installer is setting something 'extra' that doesn't get set if you don't run it that one time from the installer.
(And of course you always have admin permissions to use the installer, so also for that first run of CCleaner from it).

Why it should be doing that I have no idea, from your own observations it must be tied to the folder permissions somehow.
I'll point it to the staff for the attention of the developers.
Of course an easy fix would seem to be having it always run from the installer rather than giving the option not to. Many other software installers do that as standard and alway open the newly installed app.

Please let us know if runing CCleaner initially from the installer, also cures the issue for you like it does for me.

(I've thought of another couple of things to try/test later, but that's more for my own interest and shouldn't add much to the above if anything).

 

 

[Pit99]

I followed your workaround, and now CC runs for me, too, great!

It was essential to remove 5.91 first; when installed over the
old version it doesn't work.

I am also out of ideas what's going on; I hope, the programmers
will find out. Maybe I'll also do some tests using ProcMon or else.
If I find something of interest I'll come back again and let you know.

Once again, many thanks for your friendly help,

Kind regards, Pit

 

[nukecad]

Good to hear that it also works for you.

It's obviously something to do with the extra 'getting things ready' (or words to that effect) that it does when you first open it following an install.

As you have to have elevated permissions to install then I'm assuming you still have those elevated permissions when you run it from within the installer that first time. - That's one of the things that I want to check.

I'm also not sure if the workround will survive across the non-admin user logging out and back in again? I think it will do but didn't test that.

You might see that before I get round to trying it myself. TBH I should have tried that but I'd got tired of logging out and in again by that time.

[Pit99]

When CC is started from the installer, admin permissions are
inherited to CC; CC starts "as admin", in the bottom left
corner of CC is shown "(Admin)".

Meanwhile the workaround survived several shutdowns and
logons.

 

[nukecad]

Thanks for reporting that, I hadn't got round to trying it.

We'll have to wait and see what the devs come up with.
TBH though as yours is the only report we have seen about this so far, and as there is a fairly easy workround, I suspect it may not be that high on their priority list.

[Pit99]

I made a further test:

Seems that the workaround is necessary only when a
6.x version is installed for the first time, after
using 5.9x before.

When I later installed 6.05 over 6.04, everything ran
fine (no uninstalling of the old version, no start
from installer necessary).

 

[nukecad]

Thanks again.

I can see that - once a standard user has the necessary permissions they should then carry through an update.

All my testing was done with 'clean' installs, ie. I had removed all traces of previous versions/installs before doing the next one.

PS. It's probable that most people do run CCleaner from an install, (and/or run as an admin anyway), which is why the issue hadn't been reported previously.

It also looks very similar in effect to an issue we often see with 3rd party AVs blocking CCleaner, so if someone did report it in less detail than you did yourself we would have probably assumed it was their AV that was blocking CCleaner.