Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   For months now, I've been seeing a window flash open and then close about 30 minutes after I boot my Win 10 PC. It's a blank window and can be seen for such a short time that I can't even see what it is.

   This morning, something slowed it down and I could see that it was something with CCleaner and a health check for the PC -- disk, I thing. This time, it was open for maybe 3 seconds - just long enough to get a glimpse of that header.

   My question is how do I get rid of it? It's not listed as starting at boot time with either CCleaner's tools or Windows tools (from Task Manager > Startup). Both show CCleaner itself as disabled.

   I strongly object to something that I've told NOT to run to run. If I can't stop it, can somebody recommend something else to clean up the garbage files (such as browser cache, recycle bin, temp files, ...) and fix broken registry items (delete them)? This is basically what I use CCleaner for and I like those tools. Note - I only have the free version. Under the circumstances, I want no part of a paid version.

   I removed MalwareBytes long ago because it suddenly started pushing purchase rather than free. It got to the point where it did nothing but nag me and wouldn't do the commands it had.

   Posted 8 months ago #
2. 

   ChrisS
   Administrator

   I use Autoruns from Microsoft/SysInternals.

   You need to "run as administrator" if you want the ability to change anything. It has options to hide the Windows and Microsoft entries, which I'd start with. If you find something that's suspect just "uncheck" the box and reboot to see if it fixes the issue. You don't need to delete the entries.

   If you hide the Microsoft and Windows entries then you shouldn't really have any boot issues if you deactivate something that you shouldn't have but you still might want to at least set a restore point.

   FWIW - what you're seeing might also be coming from a scheduled task. I don't know if those show up in Autoruns as individual entries.

   Edit: There is a tab for "scheduled tasks" so you might start there and uncheck the 3 (on my PC anyway) entries for Ccleaner.

   Posted 8 months ago #
3. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   As Chris says, using Autoruns can work, but please be careful -- in the case of services autoruns will just block, or jump to one registry entry, when there often are two... if you don't find the other one [search or find] it could break Windows.

   That said, the registry has 3 keys: Computer\ HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run -- Computer\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run -- Computer\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ WOW6432Node\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run

   There are also 2 Start Menu Startup folders: C:\ProgramData\ Microsoft\ Windows\ Start Menu\ Programs\ Startup\ -- C:\Users\ [UserName]\ AppData\ Roaming\ Microsoft\ Windows\ Start Menu\ Programs\ Startup\

   Processes can be triggered by scheduled tasks as Chris mentioned -- I like to open Windows Task Scheduler because it seems I always find one or two tasks that software slipped in that I delete or disable. Services can be pretty hard to trace &/or track down. In Win11, Task Mgr. only shows a subset, while the Services app shows a larger but still incomplete subset. Worse, a service may start another app or process with a different name, and they can be tied to drivers. Autoruns can work to find it, but as above you need to make sure you get everything in the registry related to that service, and have a backup ready that you can restore, because disabling a service can break things, including Windows.

   Posted 8 months ago #
4. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   I did find something in CCleaner's options under "Smart Cleaning" and it was enabled. I unchecked that. That may help but it will take time to see.

   I also just checked task manager a few minutes ago and there was a background process for CCleaner that may have been from what I saw this morning. I ended that and I'll keep checking. At this point, after my next reboot (probably tomorrow morning), I'll check the task manager background processes.

   If It continues, I'll check into autoruns. I did check BOTH starup start menu locations and both were, as expected, empty.

   Thanks for the help. It's odd that I'm actually GLAD that my system was running a bit slow this morning. I've been trying to see that window for months!

   Posted 8 months ago #
5. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   *Probably* overkill --learn.microsoft[.]com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sysmon

   Sysmon from Sysinternals [same guy that does Autoruns] "installs as a boot-start driver to capture activity from early in the boot" and logs pretty much everything.

   FWIW, I think that conservatively 95% of apps that autostart with Windows use one of those 3 registry keys -- one of the first things I do setting up Windows is add those 3 as Favorites in Regedit.

   RE: Services, if you use the app rather than Task Mgr. you can sort for autostart if that helps. Usually I change bothersome services from auto to manual in the Services app, since *in theory* the app should start the service when you fire up the app.

   Posted 7 months ago #
6. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   It looks like that option for smart cleaning in CCleaner was the culprit. I just checked after my fresh morning reboot and there were no background processes for CCleaner. There are 6 background processors for Firefox but none for CCleaner. Since I'm using Firefox, that makes sense.

   Posted 7 months ago #

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