Microsoft Bans CCleaner: Report (mspoweruser.com) 71
UPDATE (9/29/2019): The original report of a ban has now been retracted, with HTNovo now reporting that "CCleaner is not in any Microsoft Blacklist and there are no Blacklists regarding other domains in the official Microsoft forums," according to MS Power User.
Below is the (now-retracted) text of their earlier report: Microsoft has never been a fan of registry cleaners, and today we have learned that the company has taken steps to ensure that such software is no longer being recommended to users who are having issues with their PCs. HTNovo reports that Microsoft has added CCleaner.com to their blacklist of domains on the official Microsoft Support forums. The Blacklist Filter notes that: "Microsoft has various filters in place to keep community members safe. When a website that is blacklisted is posted, the system will remove it if it has been posted by an unaffiliated user. The filter will remove part of the site so it is unreadable with 4 stars (****). Affiliated users will be able to post websites which are blacklisted."
This means the domain will automatically be censored when posted on the site. The domain is included in a quite short list of sites, which is only 11 domain names long, suggesting the activity is rather targetted. The blacklist was introduced recently and only official moderators on the forum have been informed. In exceptional cases, some moderators will be able to post links to the software, but it seems likely this will generally be frowned upon.
Below is the (now-retracted) text of their earlier report: Microsoft has never been a fan of registry cleaners, and today we have learned that the company has taken steps to ensure that such software is no longer being recommended to users who are having issues with their PCs. HTNovo reports that Microsoft has added CCleaner.com to their blacklist of domains on the official Microsoft Support forums. The Blacklist Filter notes that: "Microsoft has various filters in place to keep community members safe. When a website that is blacklisted is posted, the system will remove it if it has been posted by an unaffiliated user. The filter will remove part of the site so it is unreadable with 4 stars (****). Affiliated users will be able to post websites which are blacklisted."
This means the domain will automatically be censored when posted on the site. The domain is included in a quite short list of sites, which is only 11 domain names long, suggesting the activity is rather targetted. The blacklist was introduced recently and only official moderators on the forum have been informed. In exceptional cases, some moderators will be able to post links to the software, but it seems likely this will generally be frowned upon.
So patronizing (Score:1)
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They aren't telling you what to do only what they allow on their site.
They aren't banning CCleaner from being installed on your computer just that the program cannot be linked to on their help site.
Get your story straight.. (Score:5, Informative)
From the very bottom of TFA:
Update: The original report of a ban has now been retracted, with
HTNovo now saying:
CCleaner is not in any Microsoft Blacklist and there are no Blacklists regarding other domains in the official Microsoft forums
Whatevs. I don't care either way I don't use shady 3rd-party utils anymore. I used to back in the XP days, but today I just can't be assed to give a rip anymore.
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So what's your/Microsoft's official solution for this instead of ccleaner then?
Just reformat and rebuild your constipated system every 6 months?
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So what's your/Microsoft's official solution for this instead of ccleaner then?
Just reformat and rebuild your constipated system every 6 months?
I haven't had a windows pc do that to me since 98? 2000?
Even XP behaved for me, for the most part.
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Yeah, they "behave" but they slow way down after 6 months, a year or so down the line, the more stuff you install and remove, etc. the slower it gets.
Dedicated systems like TV boxes, etc. where new software is not getting added and removed seem to fare much better in the bloat/slowdown process, but I have the same issues on Windows 7 as I used to on XP in that regard. I have to rebuild the systems every year or two, regardless of cleanups as they continue to grind and slow down more and more every day/week
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That is NOT bit rot. It is ... leaving a mess! (Score:3, Informative)
The problem that causes all this, is the lack of an actual proper package manager.
Programs can just install stuff nilly willy wherever they want, and edit the registry however they want. /etc/$software*, /var/$software*, /var/t
Compare that to systems like Portage, where the entire install process is sandboxed, and every change is noted, so that when you uninstall, *everything* can be removed.
And on a proper system, software can only write to its own files and directories (and registry keys). Like, on Linux:
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And on a proper system, software can only write to its own files and directories (and registry keys). Like, on Linux:/etc/$software*, /var/$software*, /var/tmp/$software* ... and /tmp/$ownedBySoftware* which will get deleted after reboot.
Except this is not true at all, haha. Good luck enforcing that on linux across all distributions and all packages. For the most part it's a respected convention, but it's not enforced whatsoever, any app running as root (which of course many daemons do) can write anywhere it pleases at any time.
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And yet, in GP's context, Linux doesn't suffer from the same slowdown's that a Window's box does due to the things he mentioned...
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This topic was leaving/creating a mess. I didn't say anything about slowdowns.
I applaud the linux/gpl/bsd/unix/etc/etc ecosystem for it's awesomeness every day. Servers I built 15+ years ago and have apt-get dist-upgraded through the years are still running perfect.
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To be honest, I have never encountered a general purpose computer systems that didn't suffer from bit rot.
That includes Android and various Linux distros.
Even if apps are well isolated and the core system is read-only, like it is the case with Android, there are too many moving parts. At one point, an app is going to misbehave. Not enough to raise a huge red flag, but enough to slow down your system slightly. Then another, and another, etc... In the end, your system is slow and you can't really point the fi
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In my experience over the years maintaining Windows systems, the main cause of slowdown over time is applications putting in start-up programs to check for updates. Worse still, programs like Adobe Reader (and LibreOffice if you let it) will part load themselves at start-up. Adobe reader used to do this whether you wanted it to or not. I am not sure if it still does, but I suspect it does. Anti-virus programs have a habit of loading services and other start -up actions that hold the system up until they h
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So, you're going to try to convince me that Win8 / Win10 is somehow better? That you really think that that clusterfuck of a misbegotten POS imitation of WinOS is any better than what I'm running now shows you have a loose grip on reality.
These new revamped versions of Windows are not better, they are uglier, have horrible ""ribbon" interfaces, leak data back to MS like a badly maintained sieve, and the whole update thing is a never ending nightmare. Plus, you'll get the honor of having to pay and pay and
Re:Get your story straight.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Each major Windows 10 update essentially does a reinstall anyway. Ironically, the last one got rid of the "refresh" option, which allowed the OS to be reinstalled while preserving all applications and user data. Now, you either choose between keeping your data in your home directory (and losing all installed programs), or having everything nuked.
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Since when? I just did the most recent major update, and it acted like updates always have in the past. All installed programs stay installed, (neraly) all customizations still in place, and everything still working fine.
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So what's your/Microsoft's official solution for this instead of ccleaner then?
Just reformat and rebuild your constipated system every 6 months?
Very simple, common sense procedure that everyone should use:
(1) Install Windows
(2) Install any necessary updates
(3) Configure, tweak, and get it just the way you want it
(4) Use a backup program to create an image of your hard drive (I use Acronis True Image but there are others that probably work just as well)
(5) If something goes wrong, restore from the backup image you created in step 4.
I've been doing this for years. Using Acronis, restoring a backup onto an SSD, from an external hard drive, takes less
Re:Get your story straight.. (Score:5, Insightful)
(5) If something goes wrong, restore from the backup image you created in step 4.
I've been doing this for years. Using Acronis, restoring a backup onto an SSD, from an external hard drive, takes less than 10 minutes and I'm back up and running, good as new.
Or you could skip those steps and run Linux. I haven't had a registry problem in Linux since forever. And Timeshift makes backups and stores them on my NAS, so I don't have to muck about with that stuff.
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I do the exact same thing using Ghost. The problem is that in a year of two of using the system, there are lots of little tweaks and improvements in the user settings that get made, programs get updated, etc. By the time a couple of years go by, the image is hopelessly out of date and everything needs to be reinstalled anyway, so you might just as well save a base image of just the OS and security patches/updates. You're going to have to restore your user data PLUS update or reinstall all the apps too.
So
... and doesn't work. (Score:1)
Are you gonna make a new image every time an update comes along? Or just not update?
Because what good is an outdated image where you have to install half the shit anyway.
Regular file system snapshots ("time machine") and regular (off-site) backups are the way to go. (Have everything at least thrice. Including all the snapshots.)
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That's what MS does now officially. Major Windows 10 updates are actually just dirty reinstalls. Your previous installation is kept in C:\Windows.old for some duration .
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Never really had a problem here. However, I know that the first thing that scam IT support techs do on my mom's computer is add CCleaner (just after wiping out all her data and reinstalling the OS like morons).
Yes, I know there are some people who are just slightly more OCD than I am that want the junk gone. However it does extremely little for you and won't speed things up perceptibly. What's worse thought are all popups from anti-malware packages screaming "We found 31 things slowing down your computer!"
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Far less buggy, and cheaper (free!).
And, Linux is faster, and less prone to drastic GUI changes every couple of years.
Win 10 is not only buggy, it is prone to invade your privacy and send off data back to MS, not to mention ads.
Any software that disallows, or makes too difficult, the ability to customize, or disable, any "feature" just will not make my good list.
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Re:Get your story straight.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the problem. Lazy, sloppy programmers. "Throw more RAM at it! It runs fine." "Meh, what's a few extra gigs of useless data? The hard drive is big enough." "This program will open a text file of 1,000 characters in one second flat. And it only takes up 2 GBs of space!"
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But to even run modern Windows (anything after W7) you need so much RAM anyway that the registry bloat is negligable.
No, Windows needs so much RAM *because* ... (Score:2)
... of registry bloat! (And general bloat!)
It IS why it eats so many resources.
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I actually did have a problem, once, where the registry cleaner in CCleaner solved a problem for me. Someone I was supporting was having weird behavior in this one program. I did everything I could to solve it, down to un-installing the program and deleting the program folder, empty the temp folder, scan for viruses, rebooting, ran chkdsk - the whole of everything I could. And upon re-install, the problem came back. In desperation, I downloaded CCleaner, ran the registry cleaner, and - what do you know?
Update (Score:1)
Competition... (Score:3, Insightful)
either gets bought out, or blacklisted.
Sysinternals... much better tools for system troubleshooting... bought out.
Ccleaner... a better alternative for cleaning up garbage files (sure, there's the registry component)... blacklisted! Oh... well, there was that malware packaged in it a few versions ago... so I kinda get it.
Ccleaner and revo uninstaller are still very useful to find orphaned registry entries. And with an understanding of what you're doing, they aren't that dangerous.
Re:Competition... (Score:4, Informative)
Sysinternals are still available and work just as well as ever
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Some of the tools and source were removed as part of the buyout, and I seem to recall there being a period of inactivity, but at this point they've been updating and releasing new tools for a few years.
CCleaner (Score:2)
Re: CCleaner (Score:2, Informative)
Hurting Microsoft's bottom line on support calls for slow PC's ? Hurting thier sales to India based support firms that help people reinstall Windows for $200 ?
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Most registry cleaners don't work. They delete a bunch of registry keys that Windows needs, and often will get re-created by Windows in the end. Or it switches the behavior of Windows from explicit to some default setting, which may work on most configurations but fail on others in very strange ways.
There were some videos that went through and deleted everything in the registry to see what would happen. Up until Windows 98
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Why? (Score:2)
I actually RTFA and can't quite understand why?
As the story notes, CC cleaner was compromised some time ago, but that was quashed pretty quickly (should we compare the list of CCCleaner exploits vs Windows zero-days?).
And while MS doesn't "like" registry cleaners (why?) that doesn't seem to justify this sort of heavy-handed public "I hate you and your ass-face" shoutout.
Banned? (Score:4, Interesting)
Reading the title, I'd think that Microsoft was making it impossible to install or have CCleaner on your computer. Instead it's just not linkable on their support site? In some ways I'd expect that from many companies, with the idea being "We don't want to tell our customers to go to a 3rd party."
But if you can't link CCleaner's website.... What does that do? "Hey buddy, go bing CCleaner it'll fix ____ for you." Are they going to add a filter so you can't say "CClearner", "C Cleaner", and "Cleaner"?
This headline sounds so much more serious than it is.
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Big deal.
Also, everyone seems to not know what the product is called. I have heard too many people call it "see see cleaner", when it's really called "see cleaner" (or maybe "see see leaner").
General Info about Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft’s new small print – how your personal data is (ab)used [edri.org]
Quoting: "Summing up these 45 pages, one can say that Microsoft basically grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write with and on your devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties. The company appears to be granting itself the right to share your data either with your consent 'or as necessary' ".
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Ccleaner was good - but Corporate admins beware (Score:5, Interesting)
CCLEANER was a great tool back in the day and still sees some use. The problem? Ccleaner retroactively changed their license agreement and is no longer free for commercial use. So beware - if you have used it / installed it in a commercial environment you'll be paying for it, once you get audited...this is especially true for large corporations who are audited on the regular. REMOVE all ccleaner instances in your company unless you don't mind paying for it :)
I Recommend BleachBit instead - free, open source, and no malware attempts
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Doesn't look like BleachBit does registry cleaning, though. Am I wrong?
My users wouldn't really need all the other stuff BleachBit does, but the registry cleaning that CCleaner does, does actually solve a problem once in a while.
I like ccleaner (Score:2, Funny)
The registry (Score:2)
How about Microsoft ban the abomination that is the system registry and develop and migrate to something better? I've hated the registry back since I found out (the hard way) that it even existed - because something in it got deleted or modified or the entire thing became corrupted. It's a bloated, monolithic monstrosity.
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The registry was done as a copyright protection method. They knew it would make the system worse and far more unstable but they could lock down all copyprotections in one location, more profit and fuck the users. M$ have always been a pack off asshats and just gotten worse and worse over the years in exactly the way sound minded people warned they would. That broken registry was proof of exactly what kind of cunts there were at the top of that company.
systemd CCleaner (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is going to need a CCleaner for systemd.
Cry havoc and loose the lawyers (Score:1)
Microsoft pimps Windows as *the* developer platform. So much for that.
They made a platform, built it horribly and since the get go let developers build crap apps and loose them on it.
Horse... bolted... barn door wonâ(TM)t close.
Maybe (Score:2)
maybe they should clean up the mess that is the registry so you no longer need tools like ccleaner.
This kind of crap (Score:1)
If DX12 and Xbox/Microsoft games support wasn't a forced OS upgrade I could imagine the migration to Windows version above 7 would've been a trickle.