PrivaZer Discussion Thread

Hello Anoncat,

thanks for your nice words.

1. We will investigate (tray icons)
2. By default, only invalid shortcuts in Userassist are cleaned by PrivaZer.
To remove all traces in Userassist, select "Options" in PrivaZer's main window and check "yes, remove all" as displayed on screenshot No. 1
or
check "Userassist (remove all)" as displayed on screenshot No. 2



@dogbite
Hello dogbite,
happy to hear from you again.
we just need some more time... We'll do our best...

Thanks to all here to support our work.

 

After several cleanups I can still see lots of invalid shortcuts in my UserAssist using the UserAssistView program, some of them were last used months ago and uninstalled. Some of them are just traces of old deleted exe files, really old that I've forgotten most of them.

I have not used the remove all option because the default setting currently leaves lots of old traces behind which in my opinion is a bug. And I can give any further information if necessary, removing them all wouldn't be a good idea for now.

If the situation cannot be improved, can you implement removing all of the UserAssist by default and only option? Any drawback?

 

1. We will investigate if it leaves invalid paths. Thanks for the info.

2. Drawbacks when removing all Userassist entries :
on Windows 8, "apps by most used" will be irrelevant. (see screenshot No. 1)
on Windows 7 and below, the "most recently used apps" displayed when clicking on the Start button will be deleted. (see screenshot No. 1)

 

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/userassist_view.html

Please use this tool to check the old entries, for example, delete or uninstall some programs or exe files and use the PrivaZer cleaner, then check the UserAssistView again.

In fact, I can see all the old file names since my last complete removal of UserAssist. Which happened a half year ago

 

Another problem, I was checking the Startpage/ProgramsCache cleaning,

There were 3 entries under Startpage2 before the scan, ProgramsCache ProgramsCacheSMP and ProgramsCacheTBP,

PrivaZer correctly found them, but only deleted ProgramsCacheSMP and ProgramsCacheTBP, after that first cleaning, now the scan finds one entry which is ProgramsCache, but clicking Clean doesn't do anything. Here are screenshots:

http://s30.postimg.org/rzljfiyv3/image.png
http://s30.postimg.org/mctrvslq7/image.png

 

What is your OS?

 

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1, fully updated

By the way, I can delete the ProgramsCache entry using regedit, without problem

 

Userassist invalid paths removal tested and it seems to work.
Hard to figure out what could happen on your system...

Could you send us to support@privazer.com a screenshot of UserAssistView, or export the list?
Please indicate some invalid paths. Okay?

 

Not sure if all the old ones are in this category, but a major characteristic is, Count=0, total of 352 out of 449

Among them,

165 have no Modified Date value,

187 have Modified Dates, the dates are starting since my latest complete UserAssist cleanup

 

OK,
but we can not help if you do not send us invalid path examples.

 

C:\Users\******\Desktop\Spotify.lnk 413 0 **/**/**** **:**:** {F4E5****-****-****-A9AB-443********}

{A77F5D77-****-****-****-ABA*********}\Spotify.lnk 411 0 **/**/**** **:**:** {F4E5****-****-****-A9AB-443********}

C:\Users\Public\Desktop\Medieval II Total War.lnk 423 0 **/**/**** **:**:** {F4E5****-****-****-A9AB-443********}

E:\TEMP\_......exe 154 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926*******}

K:\********.exe 124 0 **/**/**** **:**:** {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926*******}
K:\*********.exe 123 0 **/**/**** **:**:** {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926*******}

Most of the entries belong to file paths from external drives and {A77F5D77- kind of paths, only 6 out of 449 are from C drive, but still there are invalid paths from C drive too like above

 

1. Paths on external/USB drives are not considered as "invalid" by PrivaZer (because the external drive may be connected later to the PC). To remove them, you need to select "remove all" as explained already.
2. Do you still have "Medieval II Total War" or Spotify installed on your PC ?

 

that's the point. I have uninstalled all of them, or deleted the exe files months ago, there are no single traces in file system or registry of these entries except UserAssist.

Edit: On C Drive, only these two shortcuts are invalid and they have count=0, there is only one other count=0 item under C which is a valid shortcut, the rest count>0

Could this be the reason?

 

It doesn't sound like a good tradeoff, why keep the usage history of programs from external drives and not delete them?

In my case, I use mostly portable apps from external drives and ram drives and encrypted containers.

For example the temp and downloads folders are under my ram drive.

If it's not installed to the system, why keep history of programs from external sources? For example a TrueCrypt drive or container

 

On C drive, only 2 are invalid (Spotify and Medieval) and both of them have count = 0,

Is this the reason?

 

Thanks anoncat,

1. we could reproduce this issue on internal drives like C:\ drive for invalid paths to shortcuts (.lnk files).
PrivaZer can detect if targets of shortcuts are valid but did not test if the shortcut path itself was valid... it will be fixed in next release.

2. As mentioned in previous post, paths on external/USB drives are not considered as "invalid" by PrivaZer (because the external drive may be connected later to the PC making those paths valid again...).
To remove them, you need to select "yes, remove all" (see previous posts).

Hope it helps.

 

Do people (or majority) really need to keep history from external sources. I don't believe so. It seems like a minor use case.

Now I have two choices in PrivaZer, lose the start menu by deleting all or keep private information in registry.

 

maybe you are right, we should consider external paths as invalid
if external drives are not connected...

 

What is the meaning of paths that start like {A77F5D77

I also have invalid shortcuts in these paths. Will they be fixed too?

There were two spotify shortcuts like I shared, one of them under {A77F5D77...

 

It is KNOWNFOLDERID {A77F5D77-2E2B-44C3-A6A2-ABA601054A51}
corresponding to FOLDERID_Programs :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd378457(v=vs.85).aspx

It will be fixed too as you have a .lnk file in this folder.

 

Some new examples:

Spotify.Console 230 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

Spotify.Main 68 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

TrueCryptFoundation.TrueCrypt 19 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

Microsoft.AutoGenerated.{4FAC****-****-****-****-2CFF********} 88 0 12.09.2013 06:39:13 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

There are 16 Microsoft.AutoGenerated entries, what are they, are they invalid or not?

 

Hard to say. I need to investigate further...

 

The other 3 entries?

And could you reproduce the ProgramsCache issue?

 

Do those 3 entries have count=0 ?

 

Yes, 0.

I'm copying using UserAssistView. You can see it

The second one is index, third one is count, then the date if it exists, then ClassID

Spotify.Console 230 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

Spotify.Main 68 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}

TrueCryptFoundation.TrueCrypt 19 0 {CEBF****-****-****-****-9926********}