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Skype Portable leaves traces behind

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October 24, 2009 - 6:09am
#1
freemp
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Last seen: 10 years 6 months ago
Joined: 2007-09-08 09:41
Skype Portable leaves traces behind

I've just noticed that Skype Portable leaves behind a directory "C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Skype" which itself may contain sub-directories depending on which functions of Skype have been used.

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October 24, 2009 - 7:26am
nguinn97
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Last seen: 15 years 1 week ago
Joined: 2009-10-19 19:14
Skype Leaves Traces

Did it happen on every computer you used it on or just the first one?

Nathanael G

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October 24, 2009 - 9:18am
(Reply to #2)
whiskers
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Last seen: 13 years 10 months ago
Joined: 2009-10-24 09:07
it left a folder on both

it left a folder on both computers i used it at.

one was a vista computer, where a folder was left behind at C:\Users\SONY\AppData\Roaming

the other was XP, and it left behind a folder in the same location OP mentioned.

my av also mentioned some registry changes but i guess they're changed back when you quit?

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October 28, 2009 - 4:45pm
tmaibaum
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Last seen: 13 years 7 months ago
Joined: 2007-09-22 08:54
Same here!

As already reported (https://portableapps.com/news/2009-10-22_-_skype_portable_4.1#comment-13... ), I have the same problem. John said this is a bug that's supposed to be fixed. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to happen always, otherwise more people would have reported this.

John asked to "detail your install, the files you found, what features you used that may have triggered it, your install location, etc."

OK, so I "installed" Skype Portable on my local hard disk, under Windows XP SP3. (the path is c:\portable apps\phone\skype\SkypePortable41\. I didn't use any special features and don't know what could have triggered it.

Here are the details of the files I found in the sandbox (using http://www.sandboxie.com/):

c:\user\current\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\6A6ASQC9\skype.com\#ui\preferences [text file, contents below]

c:\user\current\Local Settings\Temp [empty folder]

c:\user\current\Cookies\index [text file, contents below]

Contents of files

wbemprox
[contents begins]
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91015) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91031) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91031) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91031) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91031) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91046) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91046) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91046) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91062) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91062) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91062) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91062) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91078) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91078) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 10:06:08 2009.91078) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x8007045b
(Wed Oct 28 12:52:19 2009.9932281) : ConnectViaDCOM, CoCreateInstanceEx resulted in hr = 0x80070424
[contents ends]

preferences
[contents begins]

¿ ÑTCSO ui/preferences os_skypeprotocol True os_timezone +0
os_version 5.01.2600 (Service

Pack 3) ui_accounts 2 ui_installdate
1226068298 ui_language de
ui_version 4.1.0.179
[contents ends]

cookies

[contents begins]
Client UrlCache MMF Ver 5.2 € @ € & € n ÿÿÿÿÏ
[contents ends]

Finally, Skype also makes changes to the registry.
Here is the record made with RegShot. I myself have not idea what to make of it, but I suppose someone else can.

Regshot 1.8.2
Comments:skype portable 4.1
Datetime:2009/10/28 12:46:32 , 2009/10/28 12:49:26

----------------------------------
Values modified:5
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: 4E 1D 30 37 71 C8 E7 2E E1 9D 4F 80 F6 3A 52 7C CD 91 63 F9 48 14 38 68 24 EA D8 71 46 C1 77 1D 4C 63 58 C4 37 BE E8 8F 8E 9B AB B5 33 C0 78 B2 51 66 A6 90 57 3E 72 E8 55 B8 14 A5 33 2E 00 D0 91 E6 44 95 8C E2 3D BB 98 81 0F FD A8 B0 D1 33
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: 2E D7 43 44 1D 64 79 8F 7C 22 DF 69 9D 41 50 E8 E5 91 D6 F8 19 88 D5 D4 C1 56 28 CC 5F AB E8 15 FD 04 93 B5 D6 AE 72 9D F9 17 45 BA 43 79 67 D5 28 27 39 88 28 CF B6 5B 4E 17 04 CE 42 2C 60 F2 2B C2 CC 53 AF A4 38 F5 60 7A 15 3D 3E 35 11 9F
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SharedAccess\Epoch\Epoch: 0x00003AD9
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SharedAccess\Epoch\Epoch: 0x00003ADA
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Epoch\Epoch: 0x00003AD9
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Epoch\Epoch: 0x00003ADA
HKU\S-1-5-21-911699392-3236528909-3198933208-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\SavedLegacySettings: 46 00 00 00 A8 28 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 68 74 74 70 3A 2F 2F 6C 6F 63 61 6C 68 6F 73 74 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 9A A9 74 44 03 C7 01 01 00 00 00 C0 A8 7B BB 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
HKU\S-1-5-21-911699392-3236528909-3198933208-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\SavedLegacySettings: 46 00 00 00 A9 28 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 68 74 74 70 3A 2F 2F 6C 6F 63 61 6C 68 6F 73 74 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 9A A9 74 44 03 C7 01 01 00 00 00 C0 A8 7B BB 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
HKU\S-1-5-21-911699392-3236528909-3198933208-1005\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000007
HKU\S-1-5-21-911699392-3236528909-3198933208-1005\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000008

----------------------------------
Total changes:5
----------------------------------

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October 29, 2009 - 6:52am
AndreaOnofriPG
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Last seen: 15 years 4 weeks ago
Joined: 2009-10-29 06:34
Language settings

I noticed that Portable Skype does not store language settings and it always starts in Italian (o.s. language), even though I change the language settings to English every time.
Thank you

AndreaPG

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November 2, 2009 - 7:13am
Simeon
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Joined: 2006-09-25 15:15
Same here

I just wanted to say that this happened to mee to:

I run Skype, logged in to my account, made one call and exit the program. Skype left these:

HKCU\Software\Classes\Mime
HKCU\Software\Classes\Mime\Database
HKCU\Software\Classes\Mime\Database\Content Type
HKCU\Software\Skype
HKCU\Software\Skype\ProtectedStorage

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Anwendungsdaten\Skype
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Anwendungsdaten\Skype\Content
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Anwendungsdaten\Skype\My Skype Received Files

Hope that gets fixed in the next version.

Another thing I noticed:

What hgappened to the Launcher's Source Code??? Its not there.

"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate

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November 5, 2009 - 12:10am
tonecool
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Last seen: 2 months 1 week ago
Joined: 2009-02-12 09:54
It also happened on my

It also happened on my machine. This "portable" leaves traces, which means it's not real portable.
I'm not sure why they puted it in suite, but I'm going to check for traces my others apps downloaded from here

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November 6, 2009 - 3:57am
Parmenion
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Last seen: 9 years 8 months ago
Joined: 2008-05-06 16:07
Me too

I've same effect on two german WinXP computers too.

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June 16, 2010 - 5:01pm
(Reply to #8)
luckylittle
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Last seen: 12 years 11 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-16 16:45
+1 Leaves

+1 Leaves traces:
C:\ProgramData\Skype\
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Skype\
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Skype\My Skype Received Files\
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Skype-BackupBySkypePortable\
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\SkypePM\
C:\Users\All Users\Skype\

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June 21, 2010 - 7:51am
(Reply to #9)
olidie
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Last seen: 14 years 5 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-21 07:43
Traces: Skype Folders in User Folder (Windows 7 x64)

Same here. Skype (4.2.0.169) leaves traces in:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SkypePM\
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Skype-BackupBySkypePortable\
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Skype

This "Skype"-folder also contains amonst others a subfolder with my accountname. Maybe that's due to the fact that I start Skype with my Windows 7 on my main computer. Still I would prefer to have all relevent data in the Skypeportable folder.

oli

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