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RC CF test #2 of action synchronization


Test #1 is here: http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4003#4003


Test #2 again showed near perfect synchronization (remove.fix/backup/list purge). The only flaws, relatively minor, occurred in remove.fix.


I have been harping about the need for a "Skip" function ... not necessary ... the arrows in the lower left corner of the CF window provide that function quite nicely. The sensitivity problems with the window are fixed ... it is no longer too easy to select an unintended action by accident with an innocent mouse click.


Refer to the Excel screenshot:


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Legend:

ufe=Useless file extension

oarme=Obsolete add/remove menu entry

fod.dne=File or directory "path" doe not exist


This test employed a mix of actions, not just "delete" as in the first test. The cells with two items separated by "/" indicate first scan and second scan action or results. The two scans were planned to test "Skip" and to check results.


"No del?" indicates a very minor problem -- some of the \SharedDlls\ items did not delete on the first scan. They did delete on the second pass.


The highlighted "x/No fix" items were due to an operator error on the second pass when a manual fix was not correct. They were fixed easily in a third pass.


The highlighted "No fix" items are an actual bug. An incorrect registry change was made by the program. Details are provided below.


Backups made during the two passes restored the beginning registry state.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The nature of the bug:




The fourth line of the regedit screenshot is the "File or directory "C:\E\Videos\Dr_Who" does not exist" error picked out by Registry Cleaner. That is the data in the backup.


The second line is the change made by Custom Fix. Instead of correcting the bad entry-name, it inserts a new item.


I confirmed this assertion by deleting the second line with regedit, rescanning with RC (which picked out the error in the last line), and doing a "Fix manually" change in Custom Fix. The screenshot is the result.


Note: Test#1 was done on another machine. I will later try to confirm that the backup bugs noted in test #1 are gone.

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Fine, disabling the Age system did the trick also for me.

jepe wrote


"Mark item as old" is not working fine. This setting is not saved.

Even switching to another tool and coming back soon - all the items are "New" again.

So there should be a few more bits in the wrong way over there!


Jean-Paul

Reprise of RC CF test #1 of action synchronization http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4003#4003

tullik wrote
One item was backed up twice, which would not impact a restore. Two HKUS items were backed up with null values (e.g., "x"="") after their HKCU twins, which impacted restore. ...

It grieves me to report that the above referenced RC4 bug is still infesting RC5. Here are the bug details stripped to the bare bones:




Above are the entries.reg items of interest generated by Custom Fix. What is happening (probably):


These are HKCU/HKUS twins. When the first sibling is deleted, a correct backup entry generates from CF/RC. An API call to delete the first sibling also causes the second sibling to be deleted in the registry (the way it works...restore works the same way -- doing one does both).


The second sibling line stays on the RC list. If/when the second sibling line is presented and a Delete action is taken, CF (apparently) does an API call to get the value to back up. Since the value is no longer in the registry, CF generates a "null" value (x="").


Possible solutions(?):


1. If the API return makes a distinction between "not found" and "value is null," then don't generate backup if not found (still drop the line from the list)

2. Drop both sibling lines from the list at the same time

3. Use the value from the line or its surrogate

4. ...


These last four screenshots show the impact on the registry --- the original "path" value is put in the registry and immediately overridden by the null value. This error doesn't show in an RC rescan since "null" is not an invalid path. You have to notice the problem in entries.reg or with regedit -- or notice that Restore did not restore everything!!!





HKCU screenshots




HKUS screenshots



Since there is no guarantee that all twinned items are relatively unimportant usage tracks, a fix should have a high priority.

jepe wrote
Hello jv,


"Mark item as old" is not working fine. This setting is not saved.

Even switching to another tool and coming back soon - all the items are "New" again.

This bug is now fixed.

Edit: At the installion I enabled the use of central server. In Network settings "Startup Manager" was not checked by default. Is this fine ?


Despite this small things, thanks again for all the work you done.

This bug is also now fixed, thank you for reporting.

redseujac wrote

So the new implementation in Registry Cleaner as to the finding and fixing of entries containing double backslashes ("") is buggy and very dangerous and JV should seriously think about returning to the previous situation or searching a very good and proper fix.

You are correct, the improvements I did contained a terrible bug that makes the Registry Cleaner to list valid items as errors. The problem is now fixed, thank you for reporting.

I installed RC5 ... upon startup it claimed no valid license. The "find new license" worked well however.

Time to report about the fifth Release Candidate. Some screenshots attached as a bonus as well :)



Software Manager



Both the "Custom Uninstall" and "Uninstall" features keep crashing the program as always.


Past betas reported about 172 entries in the list, this Release Candidate only lists 87 entries, an improvement over past Release Candidates. This was fixed in RC2, but it's broken again in RC5. And, unlike RC1, deactivating the "Age" system doesn't list more entries.


The speed of PowerTools when extracting the information from the registry seems to be lower in this RC. It starts as fast as always, but then the progress bar starts to slow down, but don't worry, it ends its work without no problem, there's no freezing of any kind.


The new "Remove" button at the top of the "Custom Uninstall" window remains highlighted after clicking on it.


When you first start the tool, maximizing the window produces an empty column. This also happens in several other tools.


Activating the "Age" or the "Comments" system (or both) produces the effect captured on the first screenshot. In addition to this, one less entry is listed.


A HKCU configuration entry is not being displayed correctly. The registry stores the entry as "PC Wizard 2005", but PowerTools cuts the "Software" string to "2005" only.


There are several registry entries which installation paths appears as "N/A", although they have the "AppPath" entry in its registry key. Some particular examples are BlueJ, Total Uninstall, Wallpaper Changer, the same PowerTools... :)


Clicking with the right button on an entry and then clicking on another doesn't update the information at the top of the screen, as you can see in the second screenshot. This problem is also present in several other tools.


I'm wondering... Why can you edit the information about the different entries listed in the "Custom Uninstall" window?


The "Software Manager" only extracts string values from the registry, does it?


And the main executable path is extracted by doing a quick search of the installation path, am I wrong?


Now that the "Run Uninstaller" feature seems to work seamlessly (tried all the installed software, and the uninstallation routines were found without problems), another problem is lurking in the horizon. Some software is uninstalled in silent mode (particularly, Microsoft software and updates), and this can be a pain in a normal computer (thank God, I got a safety net, so I didn't have any problem). Maybe some reminder about this fact could help less experienced users.



Startup Manager



On the first run of the tool during a session of the program, clicking on an already running process produces the effects portrayed in the thirth screenshot. Clicking on another entry, and then clicking on the same one fills the empty fields with "N/A" (Win98 limitations).


Highlighting an entry corresponding to an already running process and then clicking in one of the menus make the menu remain on screen only a few seconds. Same thing happens if you call other windows from within this tool and you click on their menus.


The "Execute" function doesn't seem to work.


The shell menu doesn't appear on running processes.


Activating the "Age" or the "Comments" system almost disable the capabilities of this tool, producing the effect captured on the fourth screenshot.



Registry Manager



All tabs have an empty column.


The list order in the "Add/Remove" tab is a complete mess. Entries get mixed and clicking on the "Software" column in a attempt to solve the problem only makes it worse. Two example screenshots, one before clicking on the column and one after doing that (5 and 6).


Confirmed. The "Refresh current section" option doesn't work. I deleted an entry with RegEdit, clicked on the function and went to eat. When I came back, the entry was still there. So the screen wasn't refreshed.


Activating the "Age" system breaks the tabs badly. Same happens with the "Comments" system. Some screenshots attached (7, 8, 9 and 10). The numbers of entries found in the different sections decrease as well.



Registry Cleaner



The "Results" window could use a bit more width for the "System Health Indicator" bar to be displayed correctly, as you can see on the eleventh screenshot.



History/MRU Cleaner



Seems that the Wordpad plugin needs some "BaseValue" information to list any entry, since it reports 0 entries in my computer, although the "Key" especified in the .dat file contains 3 entries.



General



I've observed that if you open a small window in PowerTools (say the "Settings" window or the "File Finder" dialog), then you click in another window minimized in the taskbar to bring it to the front, and, finally, you click the same window in the taskbar again to minimize it, the small window in PowerTools disappears from there and it's nowhere to be seen. The only way for it to reappear is minimizing and restoring PowerTools again, then you get back the small window.






Uhm, this ImageShack service is excellent for forums.

Lashiec wrote
Software Manager


The speed of PowerTools when extracting the information from the registry seems to be lower in this RC. It starts as fast as always, but then the progress bar starts to slow down ...

Confirmed here ...

Glad we are down to gui bugs for the most part!

Registry Finder Misses "FF" items


Registry Finder misses items with "FF" in the key.


Registry Find and Replace does not.


Search argument was "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\\{91110409-"




jepe wrote
Hello again,


In Registry Manager in Add/Remove, IE Context, Open with and Search - Tabs I don't have any entries listed. Only in the Age column is 1 case and "New" to see.

This looks very unusual to mee !

Could this be confirmed by some others?

This bug is now fixed, thank you for reporting.

tullik wrote
The SWM window does not contain the intended information in the intended columns.

This bug is now fixed, thank you for reporting.

tullik wrote

-- this is the bug: items with a default entry-name (@) are not presented in the Custom Restore window

This bug is now fixed, thank you for reporting.

File Organizer a bit short


File Organizer only creates the first directory of the described structure.






Kegel wrote
How did it go from a relatively stable RC4 to a totally FUBAR'd RC5? Did you run it at least once before releasing it?


Add/remove is totally blank except for one entry (just a check box, no entry actually). The age system doesnt work at all...nothing gets saved. I think this feature should be on by default. It is really the most useful part of this program...quick to see whats changed.


anyways....pretty lame release.

The current version of jv16 PowerTools 2006 has 53 different windows, 766 effective buttons, 832 effective menu items.


The term effective means that the number is an estimation on multi-page windows. For example, the Registry Manager has 7 different page views. Some buttons and menu items work in a different way for different pages.


For example, the Remove button works entire differently on different page views since it calls different procedures debending whether the user wish to remove Uninstall menu items or Seach menu items, for example.


It's my estimation that 50% of buttons and 30% of the menu items work differently for different pages, so the Registry Manager has about 3 + 0.50*3 * 7 = 12 different effective buttons (or, ways how the buttons can be used, if you like that expression better)


The Settings window contains 46 different settings (radio and check boxes only). The problems you are referring to do not occur with the default settings (the Age system is disabled by default).


So, for me to test each program window with each different set of settings (only the settings of the Settings window) it would mean I would have to open all the 53 windows with 46 different settings. If testing one window would take about 10 seconds (opening and visually verifying everything is in order) the entire procedure would take 53*46*10 = 24380 seconds, that's roughly 6 hours.


Notice that in this test I would only open each window, clicking any buttons or menu items are not included.


If I would want to test every effective button and menu item on each windows with all the different settings (again, only Settins window settings, no tool settings, such as the settings of Registry Cleaner or File Finder) that would take 53*766*46 + 53*832*46 = 3895924 clicks (if I could open each of the windows with one click - which I can't, some take two or three clicks). If one click, verifying the feature visually and waiting for the program to load would take a total of 10 seconds the entire testing procedure would take 3895924 * 10 = 38959240 seconds, that's about 450 days.


If I would want to run the program with all the settings "at least once before releasing it" the jv16 PowerTools 2006 might be ready sometimes in the next century.