Re: CCleaner has become payware?

occam <[email protected]> wrote:

> I did not pay for [Reg Organizer]. It must have been a 'one-off' offer
> you see occasionally on 'Giveaway of the Day' type web sites.

Many times the one-off promotions give a version that cannot be updated.
If there are defects (bugs) in a version, you can't get a later version
to repair those defects.

Sometimes an author will offer an older version for free figuring you'll
want the bug fixes or enhancements in a later paid version.

Or they're demo versions: crippled from the full feature set.  For
example, PDF-Xchange Editor has a free version, but will show a "Pro"
tag alongside any feature not available in the free version, but luckily
and politely it has an option to hide licensed features from toolbars
and menus.  Or it is adware: you get to use for free, and they get to
shove ads in your face trying to get you to pay.

What you get is a free trial, but the trial may not expire.  It could be
a limited version (crippled), but sufficient for your needs.  The free
version of CCleaner is all I need, and I don't need the later versions.
Since CCleaner Free is limited, it is like a free non-expiring trial
(which vexed Avast after acquiring it).

> Does Bleachbit provide a recovery facility now?  Can you restore your
> system to a previous state (e.g. for Registry cleaning)? I recall that
> it was the lack of this feature which made me not want to play with it.

Anytime you do registry editing whether using regedit yourself or some
tool means you should be saving an image backup.  Not even System
Restore brings back the exact state of the drive where the registry
files reside.

Also, registry cleanup tools, even in CCleaner, should *only* be used by
those that already are expert in using regedit.exe, and understand the
structure of the registry and the dependencies.  No such tool should be
used by the blind or boobs.  In fact, with CCleaner, when you do
registry cleanup, it shows you what it proposes to changes, and it is
still your responsibility to understand them all.

Registry cleanup does not improve startup time of Windows (the
difference with huge edits is a few milliseconds due to the smaller
registry files that get loaded into memory since it is the memory copy
that gets used for lookups, not the files).  Registry cleanup does not
speed up Windows.  That's the whole point of random access of binary
information stored in a database versus text files that have to get
opened from the slow drive, read sequentially, and get parsed.  With or
without cleaning, items are still read at the same speed from the memory
copy of the binary database.

The only time registry cleanup helps is when uninstalls leave behind
entries that can cause problems.  For example, some programs will modify
the Property sheets of objects, but remnant entries can result in the
context submenu not appearing, or the context menu crashing or hanging.
Cleaning out the remnant shell extensions fixes that problem.  Only when
registry cleanup will fix a problem should registry cleanup be
performed; else, it is a waste of time.

Despite CCleaner will save a .reg backup file of the keys it proposes to
change, it is risky to rely on a restore using the .reg file.  It is
saving the memory copy of the registry it proposes to change, not the
file copy.  That's how the registry API works: it reads the memory copy.
Even when you use regedit.exe, you need to hit F5 to force an update of
the file copy.  In fact, if you've ever edited an entry in a pseudo-hive
entry, you could find that it has not changed in the real hive.  There
are only 2 real hives in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and
HKEY_USERS.  The others shown to you are psedeo hives.  They are
composites built on the real hives.

Most users don't even know the purpose of the multiple control subkeys
under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM called CurrentControlSet and
CurrentControlxxx (where xxx is a 3-digit value).  CurrentControlSet is
also a pseudo key: just a pointer to one of the ControlSetxxx keys.  It
is a duplicate of whichever of the CurrentControlxxx is the current one.
Which one is for what is identified by HKLM\System\Select: Current,
Default, Failed, and LastKnownGood.  Too often the uneducated do
searches to clean out remnants, like after uninstalls, and will touch
the wrong control set.  That's why for recovery you can pick a prior
control set or use the last known good one trying to undo whatever or
whoever fucked the registry.  I'd rather rely on a full image backup to
recovery to the exact state of the drive rather than hope registry undo
edits or System Restore will resolve the problem, and those are only
usable if Windows can be booted, not when it crashes or hangs because of
registry corruption.  How are you going to restore a .reg file CCleaner
created as a backup if you can't start Windows?  

You've got an undo .reg file.  How are you going to use it if Windows
won't start?  And how long after you use a registry cleaner will you
detect problems caused by the registry cleanup?  Likely it will be
months later, and you won't know it was the registry cleanup causing the
problem.  Plus restoring from an old .reg file could wipe out changes to
those registry keys that were made after the cleanup, so you step atop
of wanted later changes.  The same issue arises when doing a restore
from backups: if the backup is old, or you've made changes since then,
you wipe out what you want to keep trying to restore to fix a problem.

Since you remain responsible for registry edits performed by a cleanup
tool, the tool should always present a list of its proposed changes.
CCleaner does that; however, most users don't know how to edit the
registry, so they blindly accept whatever CCleaner proposes (just like
they blindly accept whatever uninstallers, like Revo Uninstaller, show
the user without reviewing the proposed changes some of which have
nothing to do with the installation, but with the later use of the
program, or by Windows adapting to the program).  Yes, CCleaner will
create an undo .reg file that might help restore what you should not
have cleaned out.  It might not work, or be usable.

From what I've seen of BleachBit users in the Github forums, they say
there is a preview function in BleachBit showing what it proposes to
change.  I didn't find mention of saving a backup .reg file to undo a
cleanup.  While CCleaner lets you keep multiple undo .reg files, using
more than just the last one can compound errors in the restore to cause
worse problems.  It has been a long time since I trialed BleachBit, but
don't remember it had a registry cleanup function.  It will delete some
registry entries as part of its privacy cleanup, like MRU (Most Recently
Used) entries from the registry, but that's not really what a registry
cleaner does.  Will Bleachbit discover orphaned registry entries usually
left after uninstalls?  Will it know about dependencies between registry
entries, like not deleting an entry under a program that isn't used but
awaits possible conflict with another program if the other program is
present?

If you cannot do manual cleanup using regedit, you should NOT be using a
registry cleaner tool which is only to facilitate what you already know
how to do.  And used only when there is a problem that registry cleanup
will resolve, not to chaff which has no effect on Windows startup time
or registry lookups.  If BleachBit has a registry cleanup tool (a real
one, not just removing MRUs or cache lists), I wouldn't use it.  I don't
use the registry cleaner in CCleaner unless there is a problem that
registry cleanup might resolve (and then only committed after a full
image backup).

Any registry cleaner is dangerous in ignorant and lazy hands.