PowerTools 2010 TestVersion 12 released to a selected number of people.
Here is the release info:
Release Notes:
* Anti-Malware is only available for GUI testing, the actual engine is not included yet (i.e. it will say that it's scanning but it will never find anything)
* This is not even Beta level software, so please be careful and only use the version to remove something you know is safe to remove.
* All features that requires the user to select a file using the Windows Open or Save To dialog such as "Save List As", "Export to .Reg" etc. do not always work with 64 bit Vista. This is a bug in Vista, not in PowerTools. The issue has been fixed with 64 bit Windows 7.
* This version does not come with any installer, just unzip the contents of the zip file to any folder and run jv16PT.exe, no other installation procedures are required.
Known Issues
* The Age and Commenting features are not yet implemented.
* The Filter Panel can cause the program to crash, so use it with caution. If you find a way to reproduce such crash, tell me the steps. But no need to report random crashes that you cannot reproduce.
Bugs Fixed (since TestVersion 11):
1. Registry Cleaner caption area: when a red path root directory (e.g., C:\foobar\xyz\pgm.exe) does not exist, the Explore feature does nothing when you try to Explore the drive letter (e.g C:\) You get this message: ": Directory "C:" does not exist."
2. Many tools, such as the Settings tool, didn't work properly when a Message Log box was visible in that tool. The most common problem was that the OK or Close buttons at the bottom of the tool window were hidden by the Log box.
3. Software Uninstaller Custom Uninstall: the other SU fixes are OK, but SUCU loops with an "Internal Error BT-EE" pop-up when I attempt to delete an empty key (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netscape\). OK or the X button just repeat the pop-up endlessly. PT has to be killed. The key was backed up and removed OK.
4. Startup Manager: Enable or Disable work, but the status (Yes or No) doesn't change in the GUI. To see the change, you have to start the tool again.
5. Backup Tool Custom Restore: restored items drop off the list. To do an "Open in RegEdit" for any of the restored items, you have to reload the list.
6. There is a bug in Startup Manager in that it is sometimes showing some double entries.
7. Known bug fixed: Column data does not get filled in the File Tool(s). For example, if you select to show also the "Last Modified" column, it will remain empty.
8. Removing History/MRU data with the "Clean and fix my computer" sometimes didn't work, the tool didn't remove anything. The only thing "Fix" or "Remove" do with this category is invoke the backup dialog and move a progress indicator. Nothing is removed or backed up.
9. The Registry Cleaner shows "C:\Windows\system32\dfsr.exe" as the file reference of an item in the Uninstall menu. The file does not exist, but that file has nothing whatsoever to do with the key shown.
10. Using any of the Right Click features of the "Clean and fix my computer" sometimes caused incorrect results or the tool to crash.
11. The Registry Cleaner could show false positives relating to network shares.
12. Fixed one form of GUI corruption, during e.g. a Registry Scan the list's content would look corrupted if the window was resized. Fixed now.
13. Fixed a bug that caused the Registry Cleaner not to work properly if run many times in a row during a same session of the program.
14. Backup Tool: refreshing the list does not work, even if the tool is closed and restarted. You have to close and restart PT to see the updated list.
15. History Cleaner: the list is not reset when you click start again, which causes duplicate lines.
16. File tool: "Copy/Move to" with 'n' files selected only copies/moves 'n-1' files to the target.
17. Issue fixed from the Known Bugs list: "Clean and fix my computer" might not always finish, in such case you can finish the scan with the Abort button.
18. "Clean and fix my computer" did not show how many items were on the screen or selected, instead the status bar always remained empty.
19. Anti-malware tool: the tool does not always detect all download directories, not even if "re-detect" button is clicked.
20. The top text of the Scan Report wasn't clearly visible, some words could be cut by the right edge of the window.
21. Fixed a few typos from the GUI.
22. If you had two or more PT windows open, one or more with Message Logs visible, closing any of PT's window would cause the Message Log panels to be closed from all remaining PT windows. Fixed now.
23. Buttons of the Anti-Malware tool were not monitored by the color debug system (now called Program Debug Tool).
24. With File Recovery, you could have no files selected, yet still click Undelete in which case the tool would hang.
25. When resizing any of PowerTools' windows the resize could continue after you released the mouse button, additional click would finally end the resize operation. Fixed now.
26. Registry Cleaner's Custom Fix feature would sometimes blink the selected status between "fix manually" and "delete error" options when browsing the errors with the arrow buttons even when "fix manually" was disabled.
27. Live Support window could say for the status of the service "Live Support status: Live Support: Online". This has now been fixed so it will say e.g. "Live Support status: Online".
28. The File Tools might not always remove a file from the list after using Delete. This event could also cause the tool to freeze.
29. System Cleaner's Delete/Fix broken shortcut feature did not Delete/Fix anything.
30. Many of the program windows were not fully compatible with the integrated Message Windows. The problem has been solved from all the main program windows.
31. On some systems there were a few second delay when starting the Service Manager. This is now fixed.
32. Some settings of Anti-Malware tool were not correctly saved between sessions and default values were restored.
33. Duplicate File Finder's Result Window has wrong captions on some buttons and the "Working, Please wait" panel was not centered correctly.
34. The Duplicate File Finder did not work properly, it could hang on large sets of data.
35. Check For Updates didn't work properly with certain types of update information. Fixed now.
36. Software Uninstaller - Custom Uninstall's Delete button could freeze the entire program.
37. Software Uninstaller - Custom Uninstall's Delete button does not honor the Abort button.
38. Using Program Maintenance Tool to reset the program's Settings to defaults breaks History Cleaner.
39. Registry Finder does not work, it doesn't find anything.
40. Registry Find & Replace does not work (doesn't find anything)
41. Initial Setup sometimes run twice.
42. When Initial Setup starts, there is a small delay between the progress panel being shown and the background turning to gray.
43. With "Highlight selected items" checked (not checked by default), the Top Panels of the tools did not update their contents correctly.
44. Custom Restore Backup Tool's Delete button has a nasty bug: it removes all BUT the selected items! Fixed now.
45. Fixed the GUI corruption problems, including the corruption of the Top Panels.
46. With very long lists, the program could hang or crash if more data was added to the list.
47. Service Manager's Disable button did not show an error message if no lines were checked and Disable was clicked.
48. Registry Finder, Registry Find and Replace and Registry Cleaner could get stuck on scanning and never finish.
49. Registry Find and Replace could, in some cases, corrupt the selected registry entries.
Other Improvements (since TestVersion 11):
1. Implemented the Move Up and Move Down features of the File Tool (available under Right Click menu)
2. Implemented full support for the "Hide and never show again" feature of the "Clean and fix my computer" (available under the Right Click menu), before this feature was not fully implemented and didn't work.
3. Added a new grouping option to the Registry Cleaner: Group by registry key. I found this very usefull in doing testing with the tool when I was expecting to find errors only from a few different registry keys due to the use of Search Words.
4. Before, the program would only show the Antivirus Warning once. From now on, it is shown up to 10 times if the user is detected to run a residential Anti-Virus product. Such products can cause major performance issues with PowerTools and that's why it's important to make sure the user knows about the issue.
5. One more item removed from the Known Issues list: "Sorting by clicking the columns is not yet fully implemented" - it's now!
6. And another one removed from the Known Issues list: "After the initial setup, the blue selection graphics are not always working in the main window." This was solved by automatically restarting the program after the initial setup. This is also better for the program to have a fresh start after all is done to make sure everything is ready to rock.
7. All the icons of the tab controls now have really nice transparency, even on shadows! (Thanks to Hukka!)
8. The Registry Cleaner's most critical component (actual data analyzer) has been fully re-designed and re-coded. This means it's not yet optimized for speed and can show some false positives, so be extra careful! But on the other hand, the new component makes the Registry Cleaner more sensitive in detecting certain types of registry errors.
9. And yet another one removed from the Known Issues: Registry and System health scores are not yet updated by scanning the computer using "Clean and fix my computer", only using the Registry Cleaner.
10. The Quick Tutorial no longer shows the Anti Virus warning in the first two steps to allow the user to select the correct translation and not to confuse the possible first time user with a warning message right from the start.
11. Within the first program run after the Initial Setup, the program no longer shows any tips (except for two important ones). Instead, the tips start to show from the second run of the program after the Initial Setup. This is to make sure a new user doesn't get overwhelmed by information on the first run.
12. Removed the time stamp of the Message Log window for users using the basic view. Advanced users still see the time stamps as before.
13. Added a feature called "List Control" to the Right Click menu of all the main tools, e.g. the Registry Cleaner. The List Control allows you to do many common tasks with the list, such as remove lines, collapse/expand groups, save the selected lines to a file etc.
14. You can now drag and drop files directly to the Anti-Malware tool via the Main Window: simply drop the file you want to scan over the AntiMalware tool's icon.
15. Added support to let users know the opening hours of our Live Support within the Live Support tool.
16. Added support for the protective "Automation in progress, please wait" layer to the System Cleaner.
17. Before, the Live Support status was only checked when the program started. Using the Live Support feature from the Main Window's Help menu did not update the Live Support status of the Main Window. This is now fixed, the Live Support tool also updates the Main Window.
18. The GUI used terms "Live Chat" and "Live Support" while meaning the exact same thing. Now the term is "Live Support" in all parts of the program.
19. Simplified the Debug Log system in a way it from now on only produces one log file with all the required information.
20. Created a nice new debug tool: when you are using a Beta Release version of PowerTools the program from now on always logs everything (even if not run in Debug Mode), but the log file is not automatically saved unless you run the program in Debug Mode. The new cool thing is Save Debug Log feature under the Debug menu which will create a full Debug Log of everything you have done with the program since the startup, even if you had Debug Mode disabled!
21. Improved the way the Duplicate File Finder reports its progress to the GUI. Before the tool could look like it was frozen while in fact was still wroking.
22. The protective form layer now also protects agains using any of the main menu items.
23. Added safety checks to Program Maintenance Tool to make sure nothing bad happens even if user had installed PowerTools under C:\Windows\ and would then use Program Maintenance Tool to clear all the Caches.
24. Improved the GUI of the Registry Find & Replace to match the GUI of the other tools.
25. Added support for links to the Bottom Text feature of the Main Window's GUI.
26. Improved the performance of the Clean and Fix my computer.
27. Added new graphics to Check For Updates feature.
28. Added support for the Filter Panel (wohoo!!). The Filter Panel is really cool and simple to use: when you see any list in PowerTools, such as the results of the Registry Cleaner run, press down Ctrl + Alt + F and the Filter Panel will show up. It allows you to easily filter out lines you don't wish to see.
29. Redesigned the GUI of the File Organizer tool from scratch.
30. Improved the way the Clean and Fix my Computer tool shows its progress to the user.
31. Improved the error messages that are shown to the user when trying to use an action button, e.g. Delete, without any items being selected from the list.
32. It might have been possible to execute some action, e.g. file deletion, while the actual tool was still running. This is now impossible.
33. The Initial Setup's information text is more simple for users who selected the Simple GUI.
34. Added a tip that is shown the first time you use any of the Never Show Again features. The tip tells the user to use the Control Hidden Items tool to undo this or any future Never Show Again calls.
35. Added a tip warning the user that the Registry Find and Replace nor the file Find and Replace tools do not create backups of the changes made with these tools.
36. Added a Delete button to the Automation Tool. Before, the Delete feature was only available from the Right Click menu.
37. Added confirmations to a few features of the Program Maintenance Tool.
38. Improved the speed of the Registry Finder and Registry Find and Replace tools by a modest 30% to 50%.
39. Updated Registry Find and Replace's and Registry Monitor's Compare tool's GUIs.
40. Added "Generating, please wait" progress panel to Service Manager.
