Welcome back to CCleaner Professional ???

[Wisewiz]

@nukecad,

I guess not. I’ll try that now on the machine that won’t hold its zero for WelcomeScreen. If being actually installed makes a difference, I’ll install it on the well-behaved PC. I’ll be baaaack!

[Wisewiz]

@nukecad

Okay, I've installed it in the recalcitrant machine. We'll see. The WelcomeScreen setting is still 0.

Another issue entirely: Now every time I open CCleaner, a system tray icon appears (hidden or not, depending on my settings), and the danged thing doesn't go away when I close CCleaner. I have to right-click it and choose Exit. Un-absolutely-acceptable. Suggestions for making that icon go back where it came from? No such icon appears on my "oddball portable with a license" setup. Both machines show the taskbar icon when the program is active, but that goes away the moment CC is closed with the upper right corner X. Should I start another thread to complain about THIS?

 

[nukecad]

The system tray Icon is put there by one of two things, Smart Cleaning and/or Automatic Updating of CCleaner.

Both need to run in the background if enabled and so Windows puts an icon for them in the tray if they are running.
(They weren't enabled with the portable because it's meant to be on a USB stick and not on the computer all the time).

As you've just installed then it's most likely the Automatic Updating but check both and turn them off if not wanted, they can both be found in Options.
Once you've turned them off you'll no longer get that system tray icon.

[Wisewiz]

Thank you, good friend. I won’t miss that icon at all. Have a good one. -Dan

[redwolfe_98]

On 25/02/2023 at 14:02, Wisewiz said:

..so my CCleaner files are at D:\Utilities I\CCleaner Portable

i am thinking that is the problem. you are using a portable version of ccleaner.

[tachy]

On 09/03/2023 at 10:11, nukecad said:

And yet the landing page message being discussed here is "Welcome back to CCleaner Professional".

So if you are seeing it in CCleaner Free then that's very odd indeed.
(And that might be a clue to what is going on).

Are you seeing exactly the same screen as in the first post of this thread?
Or does yours say 'CCleaner Free' at the top and then "Welcome back to CCleaner Professional" in the window?

 

You are correct.  It is not the exact screen, but the same screen with the exception of mine that says “Welcome back to CCleaner”, but the problem is essentially the same I would guess. My Desktop (Windows 10) and my older laptop (which no longer works), for years had NO welcome screen, and yet now, my desktop still has no welcome screen, but my new Laptop (Windows 11), DOES.   Other than the fact that it is a new install, over the last week, so was not installed on top of an old version, and the operating system involved….I don’t know much in the way of differences otherwise.  To my quick evaluation, I think the settings within the Free version of CCleaner are the same on all three devices,, and most of the software, anti-virus, security, etc are similar on all three….yet only the fresh install gives me that welcome screen. 

 

I would have thought that the pro version would not get the advertising on the right side of the screen, but I guess we all get that.   

None of my versions are the portable version, as far as I know.  

Edited March 10, 2023 by tachy

[Wisewiz]

2 hours ago, redwolfe_98 said:

i am thinking that is the problem. you are using a portable version of ccleaner.

I’ve used the portable versions for years.

They *should* keep a lot of stuff out of the registry. They don’t (anymore).

Which problem are you talking about? The icon or the Welcome Screen?

 

[nukecad]

Why are only some users/machines gettng this  Welcome screeen and not everyone?

From the v6.09 release notes:
https://www.ccleaner.com/knowledge/ccleaner-v6-09-10300

Quote

 

Coming soon

• A new welcome screen which helps you immediately run your favorite tasks and explore more features

 

Looks like you guys are the lab-rats (sorry- selected users) for this one, and that it may change before it gets released to everyone.

So it's probably not worth messing with until we get the final implementation.

[tachy]

Although, mine has never been the portable one, and the free version is installed on both my desktop and laptop and only the laptop shows me this welcome screen.  My desktop, in the past has had the paid version for many years, but then I uninstalled it (I believe using Revo Uninstaller) when it would not stop sending me daily nag screens to renew, even when I still had a month of subscription left (and continued these nags screen, even for months.  Uninstalling and downgrading to the FREE version is the ONLY way that I could stop those nag screens (even with multiple emails to tech support…they were not of much help.  

In any event, this is not a big issue for me…..just curious why the difference between my desktop and laptop….they pretty much have the same software, besides the newer version of windows on thee latter. 

Thanks for your help. 

 

[nukecad]

10 minutes ago, tachy said:

…..just curious why the difference between my desktop and laptop….

See my post above - It's a trial/test of a new user interface and not everyone is geting it (yet). That is why it's on one of your machines but not another.

[Wisewiz]

1 hour ago, nukecad said:

See my post above - It's a trial/test of a new user interface and not everyone is geting it (yet). That is why it's on one of your machines but not another.

Well, I, for one, am looking forward to it NOT being ON any of my machines.

Thanks for hanging with us through this thread, nukecad.

[arejfour]

I don't care for the beta welcome screen. How about just getting rid of it?

[nukecad]

8 hours ago, arejfour said:

I don't care for the beta welcome screen. How about just getting rid of it?

As it's obviously something that they have spent time working on then how likely do you think that is?

Most software changes it's User Interface from time to time. Those that don't change begin to look dated.

With any change to anything - Some are going to hate it, some won't mind, and some will like it.

Of course it's only the haters who will shout about it on fora, with a few 'me too's' from the don't minds, and so reactions can look skewed.
There could be, probably are, may more don't minds or likes, but you don't see them shouting about it.

The funny thing is that everybody quickly gets familiar with the change, so that if/when it comes to change again in a few years then they shout about that new change too.
(And it's usually the same people doing the shouting, many people prefer what's familiar and just don't like any change).

PS. Personally I'm not too keen on the new welcome screen either, but like the many other UI changes that have happened in the past I'll soon get used to it.
Nothing functional has changed, it's only a UI screen.

[hazelnut]

There is no need for that new welcome screen at all.

It's  not just haters who will complain, it's also people who just want to use the software without the ccleaner use adverts at the right hand side.

Lots of users will not bother posting about it as they know it's a waste of time as no one listens.

[nukecad]

Today the new screen has shown up on my second laptop.
I now have it on both laptops, one with CCleaner Pro, the other CCleaner Free.

So it does appear that the new 'Welcome back' screen may now be being activated more widely, maybe even for all users.

It is first appearing at different times for different users, as a gradual activation.
It you have more than one machine with CCleaner then you may notice that one gets activated before another, like mine did.

[Wisewiz]

Thanks for the heads-up. Of course, if it comes to either or both of my daily-use PCs, it will smack me right in the face (ouch!), so the heads-up will be somewhat redundant.

I really appreciate your continuing participation in this discussion, and your sharing of your viewpoint earlier today. And @hazelnut, I'm glad that a member of the "power group" agrees with my stand on this.

I'm going to launch a complaint with Support if the danged thing comes back up on my machines. First, I guess, I'll try the registry fix. Speaking of which, I noticed this morning that the number of lines in the CCleaner keys in my registry for both HKCU and HKLM is greatly reduced. Hmmm. Will it stay that way? Could it be that the "All settings in .ini file" Advanced Settings is now working?

Just re-checked, and after using CC twice today and re-starting once, those keys remain sparsely populated. Interesting.

[Wisewiz]

I'm not going to start a new thread on this, because it's not a Bug, and I don't need Help with it, but this registry thing is really interesting. In HKLM, where there were about 40-50 lines (IIRC), I'm down to 4 (FOUR!). None of the old Cfg stuff is there. If this is a change with the latest update, I welcome it.

(Until/unless the Welcome screen comes back and there's no registry setting to change from 1 to 0.)

[Crni]

There is definitely a bug in the latest release (v6.13.10517).

It was driving me nuts when it was introduced months ago as I find zero value in that screen and it forces me to click more in order to get to where I want to be :(
After searching I found a solution here and switching "(Cfg)WelcomeScreen" from 1 to 0 worked fine until the latest release.

I'm always using CCleaner Free x64 Portable and soon after upgrading to the latest version the welcome screen popped back. I did the reg fix again, and it appeared to be working fine, but after a few launches of CCleaner it popped back again. After doing this several times I decided to delete everything Piriform related from the registry and deleted everything from the file system except CCleaner64.exe and portable.dat files... First launch and it populated registry with this junk:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner]
"DataFolder"="C:\\Program Files\\CCleaner\\"
"ProgramFolder"="C:\\Program Files\\CCleaner\\"
"(Cfg)TTL"=" 86400"
"(Cfg)TTL-Spread"=" 43200"
"(Cfg)AU2"="1"
"(Cfg)AlphaIntegration"="1"
"(Cfg)AlphaMigration"="1"
"(Cfg)ConfigEdgeChromiumCleaning"=" "
"(Cfg)CountryCheckInterval"="7"
"(Cfg)DriverScanInterval"="7"
"(Cfg)DriverUpdater"="1"
"(Cfg)DriverUpdaterComments"="0"
"(Cfg)DriverUpdaterVersion"="1"
"(Cfg)DumpReporting"="1"
"(Cfg)GetIpmForTrial"="1"
"(Cfg)HealthCheck"="1"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsConfused"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsDislike"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsHate"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsLike"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsLove"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckCommentsOkay"="10"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckIpm"="1"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckShowEvent"="0"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckVersion"="0"
"(Cfg)HideEdgeChromium"="0"
"(Cfg)PC"="0"
"(Cfg)PE"="1"
"(Cfg)PENP"="27"
"(Cfg)PerformanceOptimizer"="1"
"(Cfg)PerformanceOptimizerVersion"="1"
"(Cfg)PrivacyPolicyDate"="2022-07-14"
"(Cfg)QuickClean"="1"
"(Cfg)QuickCleanIpm"="1"
"(Cfg)REU"="90"
"(Cfg)SPERDI"="8"
"(Cfg)SRDI"="8"
"(Cfg)ShowOffers3rdParty"="0"
"(Cfg)ShowRenewButton"="1"
"(Cfg)ShowRenewDialog"="1"
"(Cfg)SoftwareUpdater"="1"
"(Cfg)SoftwareUpdaterIpm"="1"
"(Cfg)Survey-Uninstall"="false"
"(Cfg)TrialOnboarding"="1"
"(Cfg)VersionType"="Release"
"(Cfg)WelcomeScreen"="1"
"(Cfg)ABTestingNames"="|K7UY225RPXUXG25UNXUY6"
"(Cfg)DTNP"="|GE3DANA"
"(Cfg)DUNP"="|HE2DA"
"(Cfg)HealthCheckIntroAB"="|IE"
"(Cfg)LastUpdate"="07/12/2023 05:31:34 PM"

What's up with all the likes and dislikes for HealthCheckComments? There are no comments or anything similar.
Interestingly, the PrivacyPolicyDate is from the future :) and it just feels the last release was not tested enough and it obviously doesn't have full test coverage.

So I changed again "(Cfg)WelcomeScreen" from 1 to 0 and it worked for a while, but then got reverted back.

It would work fine for a while and then get reset back to 1.
I tried launching CCleaner 20+ times in a row and it didn't flip it, so it doesn't look like it relates to the number of launches. Could be based on time elapsed since "(Cfg)LastUpdate"timestamp or something else, but it definitely is a bug because at some point it reverts the registry value to its default.

[Wisewiz]

@Crni:

It's no bug. See the above posts from @nukecad. The developers intend that the Welcome screen be seen, eventually by (almost?) everybody.

Re: the registry. I have three licenses, but I always use the Portable, because it offers everything I need, and it promises not to use the registry for its settings.

Any way, long story short, I got fed up with CC taking 10-15 seconds to open after my click. That only happened in the versions (old and new) when I entered my license key. Never happened in installed-Free or in not-"installed"-portable, unless I entered my key.

I, too, wiped the registry, where HKLM Piriform>CCleaner was the offending 40-entry monster, put back a new CC Portable, did not enter my key (even though the ghost of it shows in Options>License Key), and this time, my registry shows only four lines (always ignoring Default:value not set) in HKLM and only two in HKCU. And I have yet to see that da**ed screen on either of my daily active machines.

Maybe only licensed-registered copies are getting the screen? Note that if you enter your key into either the Portable or the Free version, you'll get Professional at the top of your window, and the Welcome pest can return.

[Crni]

17 hours ago, Wisewiz said:

@Crni:

It's no bug. See the above posts from @nukecad. The developers intend that the Welcome screen be seen, eventually by (almost?) everybody.

Re: the registry. I have three licenses, but I always use the Portable, because it offers everything I need, and it promises not to use the registry for its settings.

Any way, long story short, I got fed up with CC taking 10-15 seconds to open after my click. That only happened in the versions (old and new) when I entered my license key. Never happened in installed-Free or in not-"installed"-portable, unless I entered my key.

I, too, wiped the registry, where HKLM Piriform>CCleaner was the offending 40-entry monster, put back a new CC Portable, did not enter my key (even though the ghost of it shows in Options>License Key), and this time, my registry shows only four lines (always ignoring Default:value not set) in HKLM and only two in HKCU. And I have yet to see that da**ed screen on either of my daily active machines.

Maybe only licensed-registered copies are getting the screen? Note that if you enter your key into either the Portable or the Free version, you'll get Professional at the top of your window, and the Welcome pest can return.

Thank you @Wisewiz. I thought @nukecad was more speculating what might be the reasoning behind welcome screen and the way it's being presented to various users.
I'm getting fed up with wasting my time every once in a while with workarounds, so CCleaner's is out of my way :(

I've also had major issues with CCleaner launch delay as it wants to connect to the mothership and doesn't handle gracefully timeout when blocked by firewall, and I don't care about its bloatware, so I didn't put any license and used CC Portable when it created those 51 entries in the registry, but no matter what I tried it never removes any of them.
How did you manage to end up with only 4? Can you share which 4 you have?

 

[Tumasek]

I may just have found a possible permanent solution to the WelcomeScreen appearing in the installed version happening all the time or in some cases spasmodically. Looking back at the solutions recommended in this forum topic I first went to the registry at HKLM\Software\Piriform\CCleaner and as suggested by previous forum users I modified the item (Cfg)WelcomeScreen to "0" (it was indeed showing the default of "1"). 

I then opened CCleaner and under "Options" unticked the boxes in both "Smart Cleaning" and "Updates". Then under "Advanced" I ticked the box for "Save all settings to INI file".

As reported by previous forum members, the changing of the registry value to "0", does result in the Welcome Screen not appearing. "Great" I thought, but after a while my set value of"0" just kept reverting back to the default of "1" for no apparent reason, and of course the Welcome Screen then continued to return. 

I said some rude words to myself and the computer at this juncture, but decided to experiment further. I have now found that putting the value to "3" instead of "0" has just the same effect of stopping the Welcome Screen, as putting it to "0". But furthermore this value of "3" has not been somehow reverting to "1" as it did after modifying the value to "0". So far, after many days now, I have not had the Welcome Screen showing, and the registry value that I set at "3" has remained at "3" now all the time and thus I no longer see any WelcomeScreen. I just trust that this actually turns out to be a permanent solution.

Hope this helps anyone who was having the same problems - it's now working fine for me, although I do suspect a future update may affect it again. Hence my turning off "Smart Cleaning" and "Updates".

Incidentally, just in passing, the problem does not happen in any case in the "Portable" version.

 

[Wisewiz]

1 hour ago, Crni said:

How did you manage to end up with only 4? Can you share which 4 you have?

No problem. First shot is HKLM; second is HKCU.

I'm guessing that what has been successful so far for me is this: I uninstalled/deleted CC completely, removing all bits of it from the AppData folder as well as the program folder; deleted the HKCU and HKLM Piriform keys completely. Installed (well, you know ...) the Portable CC on my D:\ drive with my other portables, and most importantly, did not enter my license key. I still have all of the features I use, and the registry has only populated with the entries you see for the past  couple of weeks at least. Piriform is in both hives, and CCleaner is a subkey for each Piriform, but what you see is what I've got.

[Wisewiz]

@Tumasek: Thank you for that brave suggestion. Please let us know if the 3 changes to 1 at any time soon, will you?

Meanwhile, I f my registry gets populated again, I'll try the 3.

[Wisewiz]

1 hour ago, Tumasek said:

Incidentally, just in passing, the problem does not happen in any case in the "Portable" version.

Unless, of course, you enter your license key. Then Portable morphs into Professional, and it's baaaaack!

[Crni]

23 hours ago, Tumasek said:

I may just have found a possible permanent solution to the WelcomeScreen appearing in the installed version happening all the time or in some cases spasmodically. Looking back at the solutions recommended in this forum topic I first went to the registry at HKLM\Software\Piriform\CCleaner and as suggested by previous forum users I modified the item (Cfg)WelcomeScreen to "0" (it was indeed showing the default of "1"). 

I then opened CCleaner and under "Options" unticked the boxes in both "Smart Cleaning" and "Updates". Then under "Advanced" I ticked the box for "Save all settings to INI file".

As reported by previous forum members, the changing of the registry value to "0", does result in the Welcome Screen not appearing. "Great" I thought, but after a while my set value of"0" just kept reverting back to the default of "1" for no apparent reason, and of course the Welcome Screen then continued to return. 

I said some rude words to myself and the computer at this juncture, but decided to experiment further. I have now found that putting the value to "3" instead of "0" has just the same effect of stopping the Welcome Screen, as putting it to "0". But furthermore this value of "3" has not been somehow reverting to "1" as it did after modifying the value to "0". So far, after many days now, I have not had the Welcome Screen showing, and the registry value that I set at "3" has remained at "3" now all the time and thus I no longer see any WelcomeScreen. I just trust that this actually turns out to be a permanent solution.

Hope this helps anyone who was having the same problems - it's now working fine for me, although I do suspect a future update may affect it again. Hence my turning off "Smart Cleaning" and "Updates".

Incidentally, just in passing, the problem does not happen in any case in the "Portable" version.

 

Interesting observation @Tumasek. I found that deleting "(Cfg)WelcomeScreen" or setting to any value that is not "1" (i.e. "0", "2", "3", "true", "whatever") has the same effect and doesn't show the welcome screen until the value gets reverted back to "1" after a while.

I tried it again using "3" as the value, but found it to make no difference. No later than 24h after "(Cfg)LastUpdate" timestamp CCleaner will make multiple requests to these servers:
http://a23-220-246-23.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com
http://a23-220-246-59.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com
https://28.176.160.34.bc.googleusercontent.com

As a result it will revert "(Cfg)WelcomeScreen" back to "1" and will (re)create any missing properties from the list I posted above.

This happens regardless if Update check is enabled and no matter how Privacy section is configured. Even with everything disabled CCleaner still sends some data to the mother-ship and there was already a lot of noise about this over the last few years.

I don't like any app sniffing on its own and uploading any data without my knowledge and explicit consent and am seriously considering to downgrade it down to a version before all this Avast bloatware was introduced, so at least v5 or maybe even v4.

For now I've blocked CCleaner at the firewall and everything works "fine".

I'm guessing there's some logic that determines all this (mis)behavior and there are other factors that influence it as not everyone is seeing the welcome screen at the same time, so it could be depending on the region, environment and/or something else.

 

22 hours ago, Wisewiz said:

No problem. First shot is HKLM; second is HKCU.

I'm guessing that what has been successful so far for me is this: I uninstalled/deleted CC completely, removing all bits of it from the AppData folder as well as the program folder; deleted the HKCU and HKLM Piriform keys completely. Installed (well, you know ...) the Portable CC on my D:\ drive with my other portables, and most importantly, did not enter my license key. I still have all of the features I use, and the registry has only populated with the entries you see for the past  couple of weeks at least. Piriform is in both hives, and CCleaner is a subkey for each Piriform, but what you see is what I've got.

Thank you @Wisewiz. I had "DUGuid" in HKCU, but after deleting everything it never got recreated. "AP" is set to "1".

I also don't have "StateSig" in HKLM and possibly had it before (should have made an export prior to deleting everything) and adding it with empty value made no difference.
Even if we figure it out I'm afraid it would work only for a bit and then developers would change it and start annoying us again, or will introduce yet another feature we don't care about :(

I thought I'll never say this, but after a very long support for every app and spreading Piriform love around me, I will look into Winapp2 alternatives as after all I just need a simple tool that will clean files and registry based on a list of rules. The only reason I haven't done that by now is because that list is updated according to what CCleaner does out-of-the-box and doesn't have redundant rules.