- [url]http://www.homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner[/url] author wrote:PatchCleaner clean[s] your windows installer directory. [...] The windows operating system holds a list of current installers and patches, that can be accessed via WMI calls (Windows Management Instrumentation). PatchCleaner obtains this list of the known msi/msp files and compares that against all the msi/msp files that are found in the "c:\Windows\Installer" directory. Anything that is in the folder but not on the windows provided list is considered an orphaned file and is tagged to be moved or deleted.
PatchCleaner (DotNET system files utility)
PatchCleaner (DotNET system files utility)
PatchCleaner (http://www.homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner) advertises a portable version, which is reason enough to submit this very specific kind of utility; but being a DotNET app (v4.5.2 required) it is reasonable to expect issues with its stealthiness (untested!). PatchCleaner also features CLI support, making it suitable for scripting.
Re: PatchCleaner (DotNET system files utility)
XP users (since this seems to be a common topic on the site lately): not compatible with Windows XP.
License: Unknown. There's a sourceforge page but that doesn't mean it's open source https://sourceforge.net/projects/patchcleaner/ ... Softpedia seems to think it's freeware: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/S ... aner.shtml
I tested this on a reasonably recent install so there were no orphans. Without an extensive test, it does looks portable, but there are really only a few settings to change anyway.
License: Unknown. There's a sourceforge page but that doesn't mean it's open source https://sourceforge.net/projects/patchcleaner/ ... Softpedia seems to think it's freeware: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/S ... aner.shtml
I tested this on a reasonably recent install so there were no orphans. Without an extensive test, it does looks portable, but there are really only a few settings to change anyway.
Last edited by webfork on Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: (added testing note)
Reason: (added testing note)
Re: PatchCleaner (DotNET system files utility)
It says it cleans orphaned files but I'm still wondering whether a system cleaner like that is likely to cause any problems in the way some aggressive registry cleaners and so-called system optimizers do.