Beta3 observations

tullik

There are always nits, but I found no significant problems with these tools: Software Manager, Registry Manager, Registry Finder, File Cleaner, Duplicate File Finder, File Tool, Directory Finder, Directory Tool, Start Menu Fixer, History Manager (10 tools)

Did not test these tools: Registry Find & Replace, Registry Monitor, File Organizer, Privacy Protector, Automation Tool (5 tools)

Don't know what to make of this tool: Registry Information (1 tool)

Found bugs (or possibly "design changes" or beta test safety measures) in these: Startup Manager, Registry Cleaner, Registry Compact, File Finder, Disk Wiper, History/MRU Cleaner, Cookie Manager (7 tools). Most are fairly trivial.

Startup Manager -- Number of selected, highlighted, and total items not displayed. Also, 2006 listed 1 less item than 2005.

Registry Cleaner -- First try with 2006: "Internal Error" message & took a mini dump; unresponsive after OK to message, had to kill it. Second and many subsequent tries completed OK, but there were significant variations in item count and scan statistics compared to 2005.

Registry Compact (RC) --

Test 1: did one to three hives at a time. Appeared to work (RC claimed compression), with two exceptions: "Error! Failed to open reg key HKLM\Security" ... and "Error! Failed to compact HKLM\System". Behavior after each failure: RC froze with focus on the "Working" indicator but could be closed.

Test 2: did all hives at once except Security and System. Appeared to work, RC claimed compression gain of 4.65% for these 9 hives.

Test 3: did Security and System at the same time. Got both errors as in Test1 with the same behavior.

Test 4: did all hives at the same time. Result was a composite of Tests 1, 2, 3.

Test 5: did all hives at the same time with Security sorted last. Result was a composite of the multiple sub-tests of Test 1, but RC did not freeze.

Note: the compression appears to be simulated (for beta safety I'm sure). Clue 1: "Size before" is unchanged when RC is relaunched. Clue 2: jv16pt pegs the CPU at 99%.

File Finder -- Find function is OK, but Preference "Search by date " parameters are not saved (or loaded/reloaded?) correctly. Also, "Search by date" appears to be ticked on by default even with no time period specified. Several posts about File Finder not working probably have this to thank.

Disk Wiper -- It wiped the contents of a directory OK, but the ending statistics are incorrect.

History/MRU Cleaner -- 2005 and 2006 results are significantly different.

Cookie Manager -- 2006 sees fewer cookies than 2005.

=====

Can't wait for beta4! Really ...

Tullik

ryan

Yes does appear a lot of work needs to be done..

tullik

I now think my speculation above about Registry Compact (RC) simulating compaction is wrong. It probably did do an actual compaction (gasp).

The RC "size before" and "size after" are misleading, however, and in no way measure compaction. I used File Finder to view the registry hive files in a single window. It seems "size before" is merely the size of the files. So what is "size after"? Probably the total bytes occupied by all the data, keys, and entries in the hive file(s).

Therefore the so-called reduction percentage in RC's completion message is an occupancy percentage, not a reduction at all. We need a different measure. Contiguous free space perhaps?

Tullik

jv16

The Size Before and Size After are referring to the size (i.e. amount of bytes) of the files which store the registry data.

tullik

My point is that, after compaction, there is no reduction in file size. File Finder or windows explorer (*) can confirm this assertion. These tools also show that Size Before = size of the files. Size of the files is the same before and after Registry Compact runs.

Registry Compact itself also confirms it:

1. Start Registry Compact

2. For speed, select a small hive (not SECURITY, which doesn't seem to like beta3) :)

3. Click on Compact

4. Note the message claiming a reduction in size

5. Click on Close

6. Immediately start Registry Compact again

7. Look at Size Before of the hive selected in 2 -- it shows the original size -- no reduction

The issue is not a bug, but use of terms which imply a benefit which does not exist. More objective terms might be:

A. File Size (instead of Size Before)

B. Occupied Size (instead of Size After)

C. Expansion Size (a new column; C=A-B)

(*) Correction -- not windows explorer. The hives are hidden from the windows API.

redseujac

Interesting post of the developer himself here:

http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=781&start=30

jv16

The problem with the file sizes is caused by the fact that the Registry Compact still doesn't work. It compacts the registry all right but the process which replaces the current on-memory registry with the just re-generated one always fails.

However, I think I have already fixed this and the next version should finally fully work.

jv16

tullik wrote

Startup Manager -- Number of selected, highlighted, and total items not displayed. Also, 2006 listed 1 less item than 2005.

Fixed.

tullik wrote

Registry Cleaner -- First try with 2006: "Internal Error" message & took a mini dump; unresponsive after OK to message, had to kill it. Second and many subsequent tries completed OK, but there were significant variations in item count and scan statistics compared to 2005.

The unresponsiveness should now be fixed, the internal errors are just some debug code for test use, they will go away soon.

tullik wrote

Registry Compact (RC) --

Test 1: did one to three hives at a time. Appeared to work (RC claimed compression), with two exceptions: "Error! Failed to open reg key HKLM\Security" ... and "Error! Failed to compact HKLM\System". Behavior after each failure: RC froze with focus on the "Working" indicator but could be closed.

...

Test 5: did all hives at the same time with Security sorted last. Result was a composite of the multiple sub-tests of Test 1, but RC did not freeze.

Note: the compression appears to be simulated (for beta safety I'm sure). Clue 1: "Size before" is unchanged when RC is relaunched. Clue 2: jv16pt pegs the CPU at 99%.

The compression is not simulated on purpose but it's a bug in the program. The compression works properly but replacing the current registry with the compressed one always fails. However, this (and all the other bugs) should be fixed in the next version.

tullik wrote

File Finder -- Find function is OK, but Preference "Search by date " parameters are not saved (or loaded/reloaded?) correctly. Also, "Search by date" appears to be ticked on by default even with no time period specified. Several posts about File Finder not working probably have this to thank.

Very good point, this is now fixed.

tullik wrote

Disk Wiper -- It wiped the contents of a directory OK, but the ending statistics are incorrect.

I'll try to find something to fix.

tullik wrote

History/MRU Cleaner -- 2005 and 2006 results are significantly different.

Cookie Manager -- 2006 sees fewer cookies than 2005.

This is very strange since I don't think those tools have been much modified, but I'll try to find something to fix.

The next beta version should be released in next week.

jv16

And thank you for your very good report.

tullik

jv16 wrote
tullik wrote

Startup Manager -- Number of selected, highlighted, and total items not displayed. Also, 2006 listed 1 less item than 2005.

Fixed.

Thank you.

tullik wrote

Registry Cleaner -- First try with 2006: "Internal Error" message & took a mini dump; unresponsive after OK to message, had to kill it. Second and many subsequent tries completed OK, but there were significant variations in item count and scan statistics compared to 2005.

The unresponsiveness should now be fixed, the internal errors are just some debug code for test use, they will go away soon.

Figured as much. Similar thing happened early in beta2 & did not repeat. Suspect the scan & count differences are by design. 2006 seems more aggresive.

tullik wrote

Registry Compact (RC) --

Test 1: did one to three hives at a time. Appeared to work (RC claimed compression), with two exceptions: "Error! Failed to open reg key HKLM\Security" ... and "Error! Failed to compact HKLM\System". Behavior after each failure: RC froze with focus on the "Working" indicator but could be closed.

...

Test 5: did all hives at the same time with Security sorted last. Result was a composite of the multiple sub-tests of Test 1, but RC did not freeze.

Note: the compression appears to be simulated (for beta safety I'm sure). Clue 1: "Size before" is unchanged when RC is relaunched. Clue 2: jv16pt pegs the CPU at 99%. (almost all was kernel time)

The compression is not simulated on purpose but it's a bug in the program. The compression works properly but replacing the current registry with the compressed one always fails. However, this (and all the other bugs) should be fixed in the next version.

That explains Clue 1. Clue 2 is explained in another post, where you said you use std. APIs (good; one mustn't mess with a complex name space).

tullik wrote

File Finder -- Find function is OK, but Preference "Search by date " parameters are not saved (or loaded/reloaded?) correctly. Also, "Search by date" appears to be ticked on by default even with no time period specified. Several posts about File Finder not working probably have this to thank.

Very good point, this is now fixed.

Thank you very much!

tullik wrote

Disk Wiper -- It wiped the contents of a directory OK, but the ending statistics are incorrect.

I'll try to find something to fix.

The files in my test scheme were not very big (about 180KB in total). Maybe too small for DW to notice -- truncated out of your counter? In beta 4, I'll use larger files.

tullik wrote

History/MRU Cleaner -- 2005 and 2006 results are significantly different.

Cookie Manager -- 2006 sees fewer cookies than 2005.

This is very strange since I don't think those tools have been much modified, but I'll try to find something to fix.

Maybe I didn't have the parameters set the same? I'll check even closer in beta4.

The next beta version should be released in next week.

Great.

tullik

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tullik

jv16 wrote
tullik wrote

Registry Compact (RC) --

Test 1: did one to three hives at a time. Appeared to work (RC claimed compression), with two exceptions: "Error! Failed to open reg key HKLM\Security" ... and "Error! Failed to compact HKLM\System". Behavior after each failure: RC froze with focus on the "Working" indicator but could be closed.

You can ignore the red part. Happens on an XP pro laptop, does not happen on an XP home desktop. Suspect I have a problem (looping chain?) in the pro registry. I'm trying to spot it with Registry Finder full scans (*, *.*, normal & wildcard combinations). Registry Info provides a max key count, so if RF goes over that, I have a loop. Right? ...

Any other suggestions?

tullik

tullik wrote
jv16 wrote
tullik wrote

Registry Compact (RC) --

Test 1: did one to three hives at a time. Appeared to work (RC claimed compression), with two exceptions: "Error! Failed to open reg key HKLM\Security" ... and "Error! Failed to compact HKLM\System". Behavior after each failure: RC froze with focus on the "Working" indicator but could be closed.

You can ignore the red part. Happens on an XP pro laptop, does not happen on an XP home desktop. Suspect I have a problem (looping chain?) in the pro registry. I'm trying to spot it with Registry Finder full scans (*, *.*, normal & wildcard combinations). Registry Info provides a max key count, so if RF goes over that, I have a loop. Right? ...

...

Guess not. On the XP Home PC, the Registry Finder key count went past the Registry Info total keys number. Back to the drawing board ...

However, here's a possible Registry Info (RI) bug:

Repeated start/close executions of RI show a total key count which varies by tens of thousands (up or down).

jv16

tullik wrote

Guess not. On the XP Home PC, the Registry Finder key count went past the Registry Info total keys number. Back to the drawing board ...

Well, all the data analysed statistics of the tools are not very exact. Their main function is to show that the specific tool, e.g. Registry Finder is working, not to provide exact statistics of the size of the registry.

However, here's a possible Registry Info (RI) bug:

Repeated start/close executions of RI show a total key count which varies by tens of thousands (up or down).

This bug is now fixed in Beta4.

tullik

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tullik

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jv16

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redseujac

Hmmm ... don't know, but maybe Tullik means an option not to look "inside" those backup files nor to edit them, but simply to jump to those files to view them "externally" (filenames and characteristics)?

What do you think, Tullik?

tullik

jv16 wrote
As far as I know, there is no way to edit or even access the data of those saved registry hives. The data is stored in Windows' own data format and cannot be read by a third party application.

I think jv is right. Now that I think about it, the windows APIs are very unlikely to allow you to specify file names.

tullik

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