PowerTools 2006 in advanced mode broke my personalized menus

fakebook

Hi,

Let me first state that jv16 PowerTools 2006, seems to do a great job of cleaning out unneeded registry entries without doing too much damage. Since installing it a few days ago, my computer seems much more snappy, boots faster, and even seems to surf the net faster.

That said, the one real negative is that after running power Tools in advanced mode, I find that PowerTools 2006 has now broken my personalized menus in Windows XP sp2, when running in classic mode. I have searched all over the forums here, and while I see the same thing has happened to others, for the life of me, I can't find where any one has posted how to fix the broken personalized menus.

Since the software does a great job other than that, the only thing preventing me from buying it right now is the broken personalized menus problem. PLEASE, post how to fix the menu problem. I know others need this information too.

Thanks

jepe

Hello,

Did you read the following ?

http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1331&start=0

Jean-Paul

jv16

I'm sorry to hear about the problem, but I would like to point out that there is no "advanced" mode in the Registry Cleaner, it's "aggressive". And, you are warned against using it both within the application, and in the Handbook.

The aggressive mode clears all MRU data, this includes the HRZR entries. The HRZR entries are considered as spyware by many, for example, read: http://zeroknock.metaeye.org/articles/UserAssist.pdf

However, clearing all the UserAssist entries seem also to clear the personalized start menu of XP. But you can get your startmenu back simply by using the normal startmenu, i.e. turning off the personalization.

fakebook

jepe wrote
Hello,

Did you read the following ?

http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1331&start=0

Yes, but I found no fix other than restoring backups. Certainly there is an easy fix to make the personalized work again in XP classic?

fakebook

jv16 wrote
I'm sorry to hear about the problem, but I would like to point out that there is no "advanced" mode in the Registry Cleaner, it's "aggressive".

However, clearing all the UserAssist entries seem also to clear the personalized start menu of XP. But you can get your startmenu back simply by using the normal startmenu, i.e. turning off the personalization.

As far as the "aggressive" versus "advanced", I am sure you knew what I meant.

I still have the normal startmenu, even with personalized menu turned off.

What I need to know is, "how do I get the personalized menus working again?

Since macecraft is aware of the problem, certainly you must have worked out a fix? It surely can't be THAT hard to fix.

jepe

Well,

I hope you did activate the Backup feature of PT, so you may restore to the situation before cleaning.

And, did you read the topic I pointed you to - in my previous post -, as there you can find the solution to your problem.

Edit

Sorry I didn't see your previous post :

Here is the post - by redseujac + jv16) you should find and where are told two possibilities:

http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6195#6195

Jean-Paul

fakebook

jepe wrote
Well,

I hope you did activate the Backup feature of PT, so you may restore to the situation before cleaning.

And, did you read the topic I pointed you to - in my previous post -, as there you can find the solution to your problem.

Jean-Paul

I did activate the backup feature, but got an error that I could not back up most keys, so wasn't able to use it.

Yes, I read the topic in the link you sent, in fact, I read it a few days before I made my first post, but did not see where in the link that it told instructions on how to fix it.

As well as this software seems to work to clean the registry, I am totally surprised at the attitude of macecraft about this issue. Surely macecraft knows what got broken and how to fix it. Mine is not the first post about this problem, but no one seems to have a fix other than to restore backups. There MUST be a key or some keys in the registry that can be edited to fix what the software registry cleaner broke?

Macecraft just seems to want to blame the user for this problem.

To be fair, I had tried some other reg cleaner before this, including one that caused MANY more problems, which DID cause me to have to restore, but this seems to be the only bug I have found so far, so I don't think restoring should need to be done, as certainly macecraft knows what's broken and SHOULD know how to fix it.

Thank you

jv16

fakebook wrote

Macecraft just seems to want to blame the user for this problem.

Well, it's not really a problem. If you run the MRU cleaner module of the Registry Cleaner it does what you ask - it cleans all the MRU items, including the ones used to build the personalized menus.

The product will be updated to contain a new warning message about this matter in the future.

You can try to fix it by restoring the backup created by the product, if you don't wish to restore all items, you can use the Custom restore feature of the Backup Tool to restore all entries with the word "HRZR" in them.

jepe

And to remember !

As this problem doesn't happens anymore, you can create your own cleaning settings in Registry Cleaner

Aggressive - "Options" => MRU scan unchecked or insert under "Ignore words" HRZR_

and save them under an explicit designation.

Jean-Paul

redseujac

Take a look in your registry ...

Look at "Common Desktop", "Common StartMenu", "Common StartUp", "Common Templates" ...

All entry types should be "REG_EXPAND_SZ" and NOT "REG_SZ". If they aren't change them to the right type.

Don't know if this fixes your problem, if not, sorry about that :

fakebook

The only entry in the user shelf folder that's not "REG_EXPAND_SZ" is (default) which shows "value not set". I wonder if I should try changing that to "REG_EXPAND_SZ" or not?

FINALLY, someone is now trying to help, rather than blaming the user. That's a step a least in the right direction at least.

jepe

fakebook wrote
FINALLY, someone is now trying to help, rather than blaming the user.

Sorry, not very accurate this statement !

Jean-Paul

fakebook

Well,

I finally gave up and used the restore point I had made before I ran the cleaner, so my personalized menus are now back. It's been 4 days since the personalized menus broke, and they never did come back. At least I am back to where I was before I cleaned the registry.

redseujac

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fakebook

redseujac,

Thanks for your help, I REALLY appreciate it! I added "UserAssist" to the "ignore words" tab, as I searched the registry for that string, and found only a few entries. I have now run an "aggressive" scan, and still have my personalized menus.

I wish the developer would address this issue rather than ignoring it.

While I am impressed with the cleaning power of the program, I am totally surprised by the poor attitude on the part of the author insisting that "it's not really a problem". :

I had planned to definitely buy this software at the end of the trial period, but will now have to take in to consideration the poor attitude of the author when problems arise.

Since the author will undoubtedly jump back in here and defend his "it's not really a problem" statement, and this thread will probably start turning into more and more childish posts, defending this and that, I am finished with this thread for my part.

I might still decide to buy this software, but might not, pretty much depends on what I see posted from the author about this problem.

I hope others trying out this software will read about this problem first, so they will know what to expect.

Thank you

jepe

Well fact is:

that the occuring problem is not due to a bug in this software,

but is the result of ignoring a warning, in a well visible Pop-up window, and using not appropriate settings for the personal System configuration.

And for ignoring warnings and using inappropiate settings, the user who did this decisions can't invoke the responsability of the developper.

Using PowerTools with the default settings - Normal scan - is not cleaning the incriminated MRU's and so there is absolutely no problem with "Personalized Menu".

Jean-Paul

jv16

jepe wrote
Well fact is:

that the occuring problem is not due to a bug in this software,

but is the result of ignoring a warning, in a well visible Pop-up window, and using not appropriate settings for the personal System configuration.

And for ignoring warnings and using inappropiate settings, the user who did this decisions can't invoke the responsability of the developper.

My point as well. If a software does exactly what the user orders it to do there is no bug in the software.

However, as a developer it is my job to make sure it is as difficult as possible for the user to hurt his/her computer with the software. Therefore there will be some changes to the product, most likely an additional warning message or something similar.

fakebook

Well, the warning mentioned is simply a generic warning, it says NOTHING about the KNOWN fact that doing so will break the personalized menus in Windows XP for users running in Classic mode.

The actual text of the warning that the developer is quoting is:

Running the Registry Cleaner in aggressive mode should only be used by advanced users who know how to restore registry backups IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG. Are you sure you wish to continue?

We all know that running ANY registry cleaner can be dangerous, but this is a well known "bug" that needs to be fixed. It's NOT a feature, it's a BUG! For some reason, the author does not want to admit this fact, and what's worse, does not seem to know how to fix what it breaks in XP classic mode. Check the forum for other posts about the problem. Each and EVERY time a user asks for help with this situation, rather than offer the user assistance in fixing what the cleaner broke, the only "help" received is a warning that the user should be more careful, and just use backups to restore.

I will add, that this software DOES seem to work pretty well other than this issue, and for users not running classic mode, this bug does not seem to cause any problems. If only this would be addressed rather than being ignored, I know the author would have many more satisfied customers.

jv16

fakebook wrote

If only this would be addressed rather than being ignored, I know the author would have many more satisfied customers.

As said, the matter will be addressed with an additional warning message in the next released version.