Software Forum

I just updated to V4 of Ace Utilities and have struck a couple of serious (and frankly dangerous) problems:

1) The upgrade appears to wipe your existing AU settings e.g. "Expert Mode" selection and "Backup Registry files". I found out about this when I did my first Registry clean which created a problem and discovered that a backup had not been made so I could not recover.

2) The problem I had with the Registry clean is that it seems to have wiped whatever it is that enables the "Remove" buttons in Add/Remove Programs. That is, I now get a list of installed programs, but Ace Utilities and Zone Alarm (installed after the Registry clean) are the only two that now have "Remove" buttons...so you can't remove programs from there!

Thankfully AU's uninstall works OK, but that's not the point. It seems there have been changes to Registry clean that now makes it dangerous to use; what else could it be wiping that I haven't found out about yet?

Hi

I dont know how it can change the 'Expert mode settings' or Backup Registry Files. It should create registry backups.

Please check the folder 'My Documents\Ace Utilities Backups' for '.reg' files, and let me know. Also, what is your OS ?

My apologies Hari, the backup was there...I must have missed it as it sorts by "day" not "date" so the 25th August sorted before later dates in July.

So, the setting I referred to above that hadn't been checked was the "System Restore" Point (I appreciate now that reg backup seems to be automatic). However, I do recall I had all the backup settings checked in V3 and that it was also in Expert mode, which it wasn't immediately after the upgrade to V4...that's an obvious change as on checking to see what might have changed in V4 I couldn't get to the options I used to access in V3 e.g. Erase History settings; I had forgotten about Expert mode as it's so long ago that I installed V3; anyway I eventually stumbled on how to switch it on

I still have this problem with the Add/Remove Programs though; which is definitely due to AU as I can reproduce it 100% of the time. After a Registry clean, none of the usage and size information about Programs (the information on the RH side of the panel) displays except for three programs. When I restore the back up, that data reappears, however the Remove Buttons have gone except for those associated with those same three programs. Here are some screen images:

http://picasaweb.google.com/suebou/FTP? ... RwyV-hJpcU

I last use Add/Remove a couple of days ago and the Buttons were there then. The only thing I have done since that could have impacted those was Registry clean (V4) and a few days earlier Erase History (using V3)

Thanks,
Patrick

We will check the issue. Can you please send the 'My Documents\Ace Utilities Backups' folder (ziped) to support @ acelogix.com ?

hi

We have checked, but could not reproduce the error here. Also, a quick google search revealed many such issues.

I will check it again after I receive the folder from you.

How did you get on with my file?

As I mentioned in my email to you I can reproduce this problem 100% of the time i.e. I run Reg Clean and it deletes all the Program Data from Add/Remove; I then restore the Registry and the data is returned (however that doesn't fix the vanishing Buttons), so the problem is definitely to do with the Ace Registry Cleaner

I have checked the Button problem in other forums and it is painful to restore them, but I don't want to go to that trouble if AU only deletes them again.

For now I want to go back to AU Version 3, where can I download that from?

Thanks
Patrick

OK, so it appears I did have a System Restore Point immediately before I installed Version 4 (a week ago), I have gone back to that and it installed AU 3.3.1 Everything is now OK including Remove Buttons restored. So I guess that's ultimate prof that AU4 was the problem?

Patrick

Hi

Please do one favour. Install Ace 4.0 again. Run the registry cleaner. Rather than deleting the entries, send me a report of the entries found.

(To create a report, right click on the list after scanning, and click 'report' from the popup menu. Save the file)