Update: The beta2 wasn't working properly under 64 bit Windows and therefore it is no longer available. An updated beta version will be made available shortly.
Please read the following before downloading
Remember that this is beta level software. This means that this version has been made available only for testing purposes. This version contains bugs and can potentially damage your computer and mind.
As always, we will give out free licenses to the best beta testers. If a beta tester already owns a license we can also issue VIP and Platinum VIP packages for free, or other such prizes.
However, you are not entitled for any kind of free license by simply downloading these beta versions. Free licenses are given out only to beta testers who give us valuable feedback, such as bug reports or improvement ideas. We will publish the list of users who won a free license after the final version of the product has been released, not before. All free licenses are decided on case-by-case, sometimes it takes just one message with two lines to earn a license (e.g. if you found a really good bug that no one else reported), sometimes it takes much more.
How to send your feedback
* Please use the Post Reply button of this thread (http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4017) for all feedback.
* If you are reporting a bug, please give as much information as possible in regards what steps are required to reproduce the problem. Also let us know what version of Windows you are using. There is no need to post the hardware configuration of your computer, unless asked.
* If you wish to report that you have tested all the features of the program, please include to your post the Debug Report as generated by the Program Debug Tool (under the Debug menu of the Main Window).
* You can send attachments, including screenshots, to the thread from the Post Reply > Upload attachment tab (below the main text area).
* If you are reporting a bug that is not obvious, please include the Debug Log to your report. Note: the Debug Log contains information about your computer, if you do not wish other users to see all this information, you can use the Private Messages feature to send the Debug Log to us.
* If you are reporting a False Positive by the Registry Cleaner (or by "Clean and fix my computer" tool), there is no need to send a Debug Log, this version does not have debug log enabled for the Registry Cleaner to show its true performance. To report a False Positive, simply send a Screenshot of the False Positive, and say what settings of the Registry Cleaner you are using.
* You can also send you general feedback, how you feel the program works for you or if there is something you don't understand, or if some feature doesn't work the way you expected. Feedback like this is sometimes even more valuable than bug reports.
How to create a Debug Log
* If the problem doesn't cause PowerTools to crash: Go to the Main Window, open Debug menu and select "Save Debug Log". The Debug Log is saved to your Desktop.
* If the problem causes PowerTools to crash: Go to the installation directory of the program (c:\program files\jv16 PowerTools 2010 BetaX\ by default) and create an empty file called "DebugMode.dat" there. Then start the program and re-create the problem. The Debug Log is being automatically saved to your desktop as you use the program.
Release Notes:
* 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 Age and Commenting features are not yet implemented.
* The buttons contain vertical bar characters, this is normal and part of the debug system. The vertical bars mean that these buttons are dynamically positioned and resized. If any such button is not correctly sized or placed, please report.
* The buttons have red (and green) font. This is part of the Debug Tool available from the Main Window's Debug menu. The color coding is simple: all buttons you have clicked show up in green, and all buttons you haven't clicked show up in red. This is to make it easier for testers to go through all the buttons of the program.
* If you have tried any of the private pre-beta versions and a bug you have reported is still in Beta1, this is a good time to re-report the problem.
* This release contains a brand new registry cleaner engine, so please be careful and use extra caution with the updated "ActiveX/DDE/COM/DCOM/OLE" scan module (not run by default and for a good reason).
* Do not install this version over any existing version of PowerTools.
* Do not start to translate this version to your language yet, there will still be major changes.
Known Issues (No need to report)
* Not all of the "Working, please wait" panels contain the progress animation, instead they show a blank space.
* The tab icons are missing. This is because we are moving to a new tab component, this will be done for the next beta.
* The Statistics text of the Main Window doesn't wrap correctly: sometimes a space can start a new line.
* The new tool tips are not in use in the list components, except for the columns.
* When a tool opens, its first non-group item should be highlighted to populate the Top Panel. Sometimes a random item is highlighted, not the first one.
* Automation of the new File Cleaner via the Automation Tool or System Cleaner does not work yet.
* The Live Support and Handbook icons of the Main Window do not turn to red at all.
* The file drag and drop features of the Main Window are not working.
* "Add shortcuts to desktop" feature under the Tools menu of the Main Window is not implemented yet.
* The program's icon doesn't show properly.
* The new Warning and Info panels can sometimes show up with incorrect size (usually too large).
Known Issues (Only report if you can give steps that reproduces the problem every time)
* The Status Bar (at the bottom of tool windows) doesn't always show up after running a tool.
* It's possible to have two tool icons focused at the same in the Main Window, and sometimes no category button on the left is selected (yellow).
What's New (compared to PowerTools 2009)
1. Redesigned user interface and highly improved user experience.
2. Two User Interface modes: Simple (default) and Advanced. The Simple GUI shows the user less options and features, the Advanced GUI shows everything, similar to PowerTools 2009.
3. New unified list component, all the tools now use the same, custom developed list component.
3a. All lists now support Filter Panel, just start typing to open the Filter Panel
3b. All lists have a List Control option in the Right-Click menu, the List Control allows you to do many basic tasks such as remove lines from the list and copy lines to the clipboard.
4. Home feature in the Main Window allows you to easily launch the most commonly used tools.
5. "Clean and fix my computer" feature that runs the Registry Cleaner, History/MRU Cleaner and File Cleaner all at the same time.
6. New, 6th generation registry cleaner engine. The entire engine has been redesigned with safety as the number one design goal, and speed as the secondary goal.
7. All the registry features now use a new faster registry access component, it makes many tools, such as the Registry Finder work faster.
7a. Improved 64 bit Registry support. For example, the Registry Info Tool will now show the information for both 32 bit and 64 bit registry views of 64 bit Windows.
8. Program Debug Tool. When you start the program, all buttons you haven't clicked will show with red font, after you have clicked them they will be shown with a green font. This allows you to see which features you have already tested, and the Program Debug Tool under the Main Window's Debug menu will also list all the non-tested features for you.
9. Beta Release Version system. With PT 2010, we can define if a product version is a Beta Release or not. As Beta1 is a Beta Release, the logging feature is always on and the Debug menu is always visible in the Main Window. To save a Debug Log, just go to the Debug menu in the Main Window and select "Save Debug Log".
10. Re-designed Message Logs. With PT 2009 the Message Logs were windows under the actual tool windows, now they are integrated to the tool windows.
11. Fully rewritten Registry Monitor and File Cleaner tools.
12. Dozens of smaller improvements: Open in RegEdit now highlights the registry entry as well, improved Printing feature, improved Tab graphics, new Preference Saving GUI, faster Duplicate File Finder, Tab Notification icons show if any tabs have non-default settings that can affect the way the tool works, Desktop and other user folders are no longer being skipped as "system directories" by file and directory searching tools such as the File Finder, New Right-Click menu system shows you what features work with selected (checked) items of the list and which work with the highlighted item(s).
Bugs Fixed (since Beta1):
1. Registry Cleaner could show a false positive in a rare case the filename contained specially formated additional data, such as "foobar.HTMLgroup=123" wasn't correctly analyzed to be a file reference to "foobar.HTML".
2. Closing one instance of PowerTools also closes possible other instances of PowerTools.
3. Anti-Malware tool: the “Update Anti-Malware” Abort and Close buttons stay red when clicked
4. Registry Info: bottom part of the lists below the pie charts are not visible.
5. If a list contains only one item, the Select features such as Select All, do not work.
6. Registry Find & Replace: the results window cannot be resized.
7. Automation Tool: message "x0x and xyz" run succesfully! should say "... ran ..."" (not "run").
8. Global Ignore List implementation is full of holes, it is, for example, possible to delete files with the file tools even if the files are listed in the Global Ignore List.
9. Start Menu Tool lists everything under the caption of "Found broken shortcuts" even all the empty directories, which in fact are not broken shortcuts.
10. Registry Finder and Registry Cleaner can show duplicate data, especially under 64 bit Windows 7.
11. If you start to write while a list is in focus, it pops up the Filter Panel but there is a short delay before the panel actually shows. The delay sometimes causes the one or more typed character to be lost. If you wait until the panel shows before typing the second character, it is OK.
12. Many tool lists: hitting the refresh key (f5) brings up the filter panel filled with a single "t" character.
13. Sometimes when using the Filter Panel you can see the filtering in action, lines being hidden etc.
14. Sometimes when using the Filter Panel the list can just show a few lines, yet still there is a scroll bar visible.
15. An item fixed from the Known Issues list: Checking list items by clicking directly their checkboxes can cause unexpected results.
16. Program Maintenance Tool can start with the scroll bar automatically scrolled at a random position, it should always start in a way the first button is visible.
17. When running Registry Monitor's "Create snapshot" it can sometimes run but produce no snapshot whatsoever.
18. Registry Monitor doesn't always delete a corrupted or incomplete Registry Snapshot file.
19. The SafeyNet can allow the user to delete registry keys and values critical to the system.
20. The Settings item in the Main Window's Tools menu does not work.
21. The Settings and Backups features are inconsistent in the Main Window, at one place "Settings" comes first, on another the "Backups".
22. After a tool window is shown, its status bar can remain empty and only updated after the list is clicked.
23. The Font Scan module of the Registry Cleaner can produce False Positives in a rare case the registry contains incorrectly formatted data.
24. The lists are sometimes in random order, that is, if the user hasn't sorted the list by clicking a column the lists do not always have a default sorting applied.
25. The lists do not remember the last used sort setting.
26. Uninstalling a software using Software Uninstaller's Custom Uninstall feature causes the Custom Uninstall to freeze until Software Manager has re-populated its screen.
Other Improvements (since Beta1):
1. New Main Window GUI look and feel.
2. Better button positioning in Quick Tutorial.
3. Better looking Message Windows.
4. Better looking Hint popups.
5. Live Support window now stays on top of other windows.
6. Removed one limitation of Beta1: The Averages section of the Registry Info Tool is not yet implemented.
7. If a list has only a few items, a progress panel will no longer be shown while a selection operation (e.g. Select All) is running as the operation will only take a second. The progress panel will only be shown with long lists where the operation can take a few seconds to complete.
8. Greatly improved the GUI of the Settings window.
9. The File Tool and the Directory Tool now report if some items were not listed because of the Never Show Again feature or the Global Ignore List. (message shown only if Show Extended information has been enabled from Settings)
10. The Show Extended information feature is now disabled by default for users of the Basic user interface and enabled by default for users of the Advanced user interface.
11. Greatly improved the way Software Uninstaller and Registry Manager handle and report the execution of the uninstaller application.
12. Added a warning to let the user know that PowerTools cannot undo any actions done by running the uninstaller application of a third party.
13. Improved the speed of the Registry Finder and Registry Cleaner.
14. Improved the look and feel of the Quick Tutorial.
15. Registry Info's 64 bit registry features are no longer visible under 32 bit Windows.
16. Added a neat looking Warning panel to Program Maintenance Tool, clicking the Warning panel closes it and it will not be shown again.
17. If the Registry Monitor crashes while creating a snapshot, the incomplete snapshot will be automatically deleted by the Registry Monitor. Starting from the next version, the user is shown a message when this happens, before no message was shown.
18. Added features to test the Safety Net from the Main Window's Debug menu.
19. The File Tool and Directory Tool no longer show the Top Panel if the list is empty.
20. Removed Match Criteria tab from the Duplicate File Finder, the feature was more confusing than usefull.
21. The "you are running the program in debug mode..." tip no longer shows with these Beta Testing Releases.
22. The Startup Manager now starts with the filter panel invisible, before the panel was visible by default and this could be quite confusing for new users.
23. Empty lists now show a text, for example the Backup tool shows "(No backups found)" if there are no backups to display.
24. "The registry scan is now finished. All the items listed in the Registry Cleaner window are errornous should be safe to fix ..." message will no longer be shown if the Registry Cleaner scan doesn't find any errors.
25. Fully redesigned File Cleaner.
26. File Cleaner no longer shows "These files were found..." message if no files were found.
27. The program could check for Live Support status within the first program run, this is not needed as the program needs to restart.
28. The first non-group item of the list is now automatically highlighted after an operation.
29. Initial Setup doesn't cache directories that look like backup or temp directories.
30. The System Cleaner is no longer visible for users using the Simple User Interface, the tool is the most dangerous tool of the entire program and therefore will not be shown to novice users.
31. The System Cleaner now shows an info message when started to let the user know what the tool actually does.
32. The Top Panels of different tools are no longer visible if the tool's list is empty.
And remember, please send all your feedback regarding this beta version to this thread! Not via the Bug Tracker, not via the site's contact us page. Thank you!
