tuttle

Thanks. Can you explain what are is a Help File Issue, as I described above?

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit CCleaner Portable 3.12.1572 Hello: Registry cleaner always finds several of these: Help File Issue Unused File Extension What is a Help File Issue? Some of the entries relate to MS Office 2000, which is installed on this system and both it and its help are working. Unused File Extension finds several extensions that are used by installed applications. I read a couple of older forum threads that said that CCleaner developers are working on this, and some members advised not deleting those entries. Some even suggested using an older version of CCleaner. Is there any recent update on this issue? How do I know when I should allow CCleaner to delete those entries, or when should I tell CCleaner to ignore them? Thanks

We all know that use of the .ini file is a more convenient option. It allows easy transferrance of user settings and cookie save lists to other computers and to portable installations on USB flash drives. There's no reason that the .ini could not be installed elsewhere, in accordance with Windows standards as so many other portable apps do. The .ini file could still be portable, it just should not go in Program Files. It's not about being in step with me. Not saving writable files to Program Files directory has been a well known Windows standard at least since WinXP, and is also the case with Unix.

Ah, okay, so no way within CCleaner to do this, while still having CCleaner.exe install to Program Files? This really should be fixed by Piriform. Executables should, of course, be installed to Program Files because of the protections designed into that directory. But, writable files are not to go in that directory. This has been the case since at least WinXP, so developers are well aware of this. CCleaner should by default locate the .ini file in ProgramData, or in the user's directory, and even better to provide an option of where it should go. Thanks for the reply.

Is there a way to use the CCleaner.ini but to locate it somewhere other than \Program Files\ ? Can that location be set by the user?

If CCleaner is installed to C:, which is the normal location for software installs, the .ini file goes in the CCleaner folder in the Program Files folder. There seems to be no way to change the location of the .ini file other than to change the location of the install. That's bad behaviour not in keeping with Windows developer standards. The INI file is a good arrangement, as it keeps entries out of registry and enables INI files to be shared and copied to other installations. CCleaner should not place the .ini in that folder, as that's bad behaviour. Windows developer standards state that writeable files should not be in Programs Files directory. Programs Files includes special protection for application files. But then I'd lose the benefit of having all my settings in one place which I can include in backups and copy to other installations. The INI file is a sensible setup, but CCleaner's location of it is not. Windows 7 provides many considerations and protections for applications installed in Programs Files directory. There's a good reason why applications are meant to install there. Installing elsewhere, because an application doesn't follow sensible standards, loses the value of that directory for that application. That's an interesting approach. Have you posted instructions somewhere that I can look at? From these replies, it sounds as though there is not a way to tell CCleaner to place its INI file somewhere other than Program Files, if CCleaner was installed to the sensible default location of Program Files. CCleaner should stop writing INI to Program Files directory which has been advised to be non-writeable since at least Windows XP or NT. It's only in Vista and Win7 that the standard gained more enforcement, as an INI placed in Program Files may not be able to be edited/updated.

Windows 7 64-bit CCleaner 3.12 Slim Installed CCleaner to default location, which is Program Files, and set it to save settings to CCleaner.ini file. CCleaner.ini is created in \Program Files\ directory. Why is this? My understanding is that writable files, such as a settings file that will change, should not be written to \Program Files\ directory. There are issues around whether they are writable/editable or not, because Windows 7 protects things in that folder. 1. Can someone please explain how this works with CCleaner in Windows 7 ? 2. When logged in as Administrator, to run CCleaner I must respond to User Account Control prompt and accept elevation. Yet, when logged in as as standard user, there is no UAC prompt. This seems the reverse of expected, could someone please explain? When logged in as Administrator, I set a cookie to be saved by CCleaner. Later when I logged in as a standard user and ran CCleaner, that cookie was still set to be saved. 3. Is CCleaner intended NOT to have per-user settings? Are only the Administrator settings retained? 4. Should there not at least be per-user saving of cookies? Different users (user accounts) will likely have different web sites on which they wish to retain cookies for logins, etc. 5. If CCleaner only saves settings to .ini file in Program Files directory, rather than to Appdata per user, is it possible to change that location? It might be preferable to save it on my Data partition where it will be saved in case Windows partition ever needs to be restored. Thanks

This ability could be coded into a future version of CCleaner for Vista, which should then be permitted only if run by an Administrator. Vista's Disk Cleanup does precisely that. When run as an Administrator, Disk Cleanup gives the option to cleanup just that user's files, or files from all user accounts. It would be great if CCleaner added that ability.

I highly recommend Acronis True Image Home. It enables you to make a backup image of your entire disk: includes Windows, all your applications, all your files, all user-defined settings and preferences ... the entire current state of your disk. I recommend you create your backup images to an external USB hard drive. Even if you had a total hard drive failure, you just replace the dead drive with a new drive, then restore from your latest Acronis True Image backup image, and in no time at all your system is exactly the way it was at the time of your last backup. You don't even need to format the new drive.

Yaaay! So, my fix has worked for two of us. Perhaps others who were having this problem will try it and report. Maybe I've found the solution for all of us Vista users. You're welcome. I hope the developers will consider them.

What the heck are you talking about? Many users have reported that a Vista Standard User cannot run CCleaner. That was why I posted details here, and posted how I solved the problem on my system. I also made three suggestions which would allow CCleaner to work better with Vista and user accounts. If you don't use Vista or don't use multiple user accounts, then you would not see the issue anyway and so your criticism of our efforts to solve the problem is not helpful.

Required CCleaner enhancements for Vista 1. It would be useful if the developers would add a function to CCleaner to allow an Administrator to clean all accounts with one scan. Vista's Disk Cleanup has this functionality: when an Administrator launches Disk Cleanup, it prompts to ask if you want to clean "My files only" or "Files from all users on this computer". That's what CCleaner should do. 2. More fully implement support for Vista's User Account Control. For example, a Standard User should not be permitted to run the Registry cleaner, nor the Tools function, nor to edit Options other than Cookies to save. 3. Allow the use of a command parameter/switch that can be used, with /AUTO, to "tell" CCleaner which account to clean. Then it should be possible to run CCleaner /AUTO as Administrator or as SYSTEM (via Vista Task Scheduler) but making CCleaner to clean any or all Standard users' accounts.

Do not login as Administrator, do not Run as Administrator. There is no benefit to that, and whoever suggested it did not understand how elevated privileges work in Vista. Doing so will only clean the Administrator's account. To clean a Standard User account, the Standard User must login and CCleaner must be run as that Standard User. Problem solved on my Vista system I fixed the problem on my Vista system. The Standard User can now run CCleaner. I found that the shortcut and the Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe had become set to "Run as administrator". So, I unchecked that. Now when the Standard User is logged in, launching the shortcut or directly launching CCleaner.exe is done as Standard User, so CCleaner cleans the Standard User's account. Required CCleaner enhancements 1. It would be useful if the developers would add a function to CCleaner to allow an Administrator to clean all accounts with one scan. Vista's Disk Cleanup has this functionality: when an Administrator launches Disk Cleanup, it prompts to ask if you want to clean "My files only" or "Files from all users on this computer". That's what CCleaner should do. 2. More fully implement support for Vista's User Account Control. For example, a Standard User should not be permitted to run the Registry cleaner, nor the Tools function, nor to edit Options other than Cookies to save. 3. Allow the use of a command parameter/switch that can be used, with /AUTO, to "tell" CCleaner which account to clean. Then it should be possible to run CCleaner /AUTO as Administrator or as SYSTEM (via Vista Task Scheduler) but making CCleaner to clean any or all Standard users' accounts.

Hello Davey. Thanks for the reply. I have installed CCleaner 2.09.600. The behaviour is the same. I have seen some posts recommending that Standard users run CCleaner as administrator. I wonder if those are posted by people who have not tested that idea. Even if Standard user entered the Administrator password or ran CCleaner as admin, it would not be useful: if it is run as Administrator, then CCleaner cleans the Administrator account and not the Standard user account. To clean a Standard user account, the Standard user must be the account that runs CCleaner as otherwise CCleaner does not know which account to clean. Is there any workaround to this? Is there any parameter that can be used, with /AUTO, to "tell" CCleaner which account to clean? If there is, then it might be possible to run CCleaner /AUTO as Administrator or as SYSTEM (via Vista Task Scheduler) but making CCleaner to clean the Standard user's account.

Vista Home Premium, Service Pack 1 CCleaner 2.08 Slim build UAC enabled I setup this laptop for a non-techie friend. As Administrator, I installed CCleaner. I created a Standard user account for my friend, and in that account I created a shortcut for him to run CCleaner silently using AUTO parameter: "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO When logged in as Standard user, he has been able to use that shortcut to run CCleaner silently without any UAC prompt or password. However, sometime this week it changed: now when he launches the shortcut, he receives a UAC prompt requiring the Administrator password or it will not run CCleaner. Even if Standard user entered the Administrator password or ran CCleaner as admin, it would not be useful: if it is run as administrator, then CCleaner cleans the Administrator account and not the Standard user account. Further info.: prior to this recent failure, the Standard user was able to run both the shortcut to /AUTO cleaning, and also open the entire CCleaner application without any UAC prompt or password. During that same time, the Administrator could not run an /AUTO shortcut or open the application unless he entered the Administrator password. (Pretty much the reverse of what you'd expect to happen.) The only significant change this week has been that I installed Avast Home Edition 4.8.1201.80611 anti-virus. After I installed Avast, the Standard user could no longer run the CCleaner /AUTO shortcut unless he used the Administrator password. (I have disk images of my system before installing Avast and after, so I was able to roll back to an earlier image to test CCleaner's behaviour immediately before Avast was installed.) Why did it stop working? Why did the silent /AUTO cleaning work for the Standard user before, but now it won't work without the Administrator password? Is there any solution?