I run Chrome Portable, browsed to a couple of sites, changed some settings and closed it.
It left folders and registry entries behind:
Regshot 1.8.2
Kommentar:
Datum und Zeit:2009/11/2 10:55:09 , 2009/11/2 10:58:00
----------------------------------
keys added:12
----------------------------------
HKCU\Software\Google
HKCU\Software\Google\Common
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz\Events
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz\Events\C
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz\PTimes
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz\RLZs
HKCU\Software\Google\Update
HKCU\Software\Google\Update\Clients
HKCU\Software\Google\Update\ClientState
HKCU\Software\Google\Update\ClientState\{8A69D345-D564-463c-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}
HKCU\Software\MozillaPlugins
----------------------------------
Werte geändert:5
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: 7B 4F F0 4F E9 EB C5 69 FB 36 33 81 A3 37 90 6B 63 2F E8 A0 01 40 81 17 A8 7D DE 46 56 16 BA FE 02 96 61 3C 71 9E E8 67 AD 1D 14 09 E6 1C 58 2A 5B 2E 39 CC 1D 6C BB 39 64 14 30 ED 3E 75 57 46 EE 6C 2B 0B EE 32 7C C6 8E BB BD 0A FC 85 49 9D
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: C4 55 36 B6 40 F2 54 34 0B B7 57 4D BD 49 3E D2 7E 64 C3 38 02 DB C3 6D 0F 3A F2 DE EB 66 9C A1 F1 4E 40 99 C5 A8 D4 79 BB 62 37 3C 32 CA 2D F9 33 12 5C A0 0C 68 85 5B 22 A5 CA 7C 3C 66 3F 6D D9 76 3E 7E CA B5 56 68 CF D4 4F 22 DB 03 0F B2
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher\TracesProcessed: 0x0000005E
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher\TracesProcessed: 0x0000006C
----------------------------------
file added :1
----------------------------------
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Itunes\Lokale Einstellungen\Temp\chrome_shutdown_ms.txt
----------------------------------
folder added:3
----------------------------------
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten\Google
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten\Google\Chrome
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten\Google\Chrome\User Data
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
I have never looked at the source, but from what appears there it seems to be a localization problem.
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
*EDIT*
I have those keys on my machine, Chrome is NOT installed there.
I also have C:\Documents and Settings\Blarg\Application Data\Google\Local Search History
HKCU\Software\Google\Update
That is not a language program.
I though Data\ looked skinny. But those may be releated to the updater. At any rate, I do think that they need to be handled.
GRAWR. I want a good release for once.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I'm confirming this
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Geez! You people are PICKY!
OK Let's see what we got here.
HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz
I don't even know what this is, I don't think I'll touch it. Chances are I have more chance of doing damage to other Google apps installed on the local machine (mine has more keys than listed here) than properly cleaning up after Chrome Portable.It looks like it's part of the DLL that "measures partner distribution deals". Whatever that means. I may clobber it on close regardless of whether or not it existed on startup... I'll need to test stuff to make sure it doesn't break anything when I do that.
HKCU\Software\Google\Update\ClientState\{8A69D345-D564-463c-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}
I will have the launcher remove this key if it wasn't present on startup.
HKCU\Software\MozillaPlugins
Google Chrome checks this key for plugins installed into Firefox, so it can pick up on them and use them (since when it came out plugin installers like Flash didn't install to Chrome, obviously).
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed
Probably related to the password encryption stuff, this key is manipulated by internal Windows APIs.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher\TracesProcessed
Ditto about being set by Windows APIs, not gonna touch it.
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Itunes\Lokale Einstellungen\Temp\chrome_shutdown_ms.txt
I don't have any such file like this in my %TEMP%, hmm... anyways it's probably a small single file in %TEMP% with no "interesting" data in it so I'm not gonna worry too much about it, but I'll take a look at it if I can get it to pop up (I don't have one).
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten\Google\Chrome\User Data
I'll verify this in a VM, if I can reproduce it then I'll have it destroy the directory on quit if it's empty.
Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.
Backup and restore HKCU\Software\Google\Common\Rlz. Deleting a registry key on a PC that was there is still bad form.
Remembering whether it was there and ditching the updater key works.
Do the same with the MozillaPlugins key.
You can ignore the RNG/Seed and TracesProcessed keys.
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten is %APPDATA% (the env string) so it can be handled that way.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
MozillaPlugins is technically a Firefox key, but I guess if it's empty we can clobber it since it isn't doing anything useful for anyone.
The reason I suggest clobbering Rlz is because it sounds like just tracking data to me, same reason one may choose to clobber cookies every so often. I'll back up the local data though, but I'll probably just clobber the data the portable Chrome puts there, since it doesn't need it obviously (since it runs fine and just regenerates it).
Actually C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten is the local appdata, %APPDATA% would be C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\username\Anwendungsdaten
NSIS uses $LOCALAPPDATA or whatever to represent it. Don't forget my non-PAF installer imported Google Chrome profiles from there, I can handle it. 
I just noticed there don't appear to be any HKLM keys, I may have to do my own testing on an Administrative account (Chrome does check the HKLM version of MozillaPlugins, I know that, I just dunno if it'll create that, too).
Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.
We check if it's there on launch and remove it if it wasn't. Like I said, we don't go deleting existing keys on people's PCs regardless of what they contain. So MozillaPlugins should be checked on launch and removed on exit if empty.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I'm only going to remove if it it's empty, don't worry.
And I already put code in place to back up and restore Rlz.
Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.
I am just trying to ensure quality
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
If you want quality why are you running Windows?
*rimshot*
I kid!
Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.
It doesn't seem to create User Data but it DEFINITELY creates the Chrome directory one level up. Right now it's looking like it just tries to check if User Data exists. I will check to see what happens if it does not though.
[Edit: It does, I'll have the launcher clean it up.]
In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Update\ClientState\{8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}:
- Reads brand, never writes
- Writes to dr, never reads (always 1?)
- Reads lang. Never writes, doesn't seem to affect actual language (changing language in Chrome still has this value at "en").
- Tries to read referral (doesn't exist)
- Reads and writes usagestats (always 0?)
Since GCP works fine without any of these values in place I'm not going to worry too much. I will just remove the key on quit if it wasn't there when GCP started up.
Both HKLM and HKCU Software\MozillaPlugins are created. I'll remove them both if they are empty on quit.
Tries to read from the following keys, they don't exist on any machine (yet) and it doesn't create the keys so no need to do anything with them:
- HKLM\Software\Google\Chrome\Extensions (globally installed extensions, I guess...)
- HKLM and HKCU\Software\Google\Google Chrome\IndexerPlugins (huh? Maybe Chrome can/will use Google Desktop plugins somehow?)
- HKLM\Software\Google\Update\Client\{8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}
- HKLM\Software\Google\Update\ClientState\{8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96} (both are overrides or fallbacks for the HKCU values maybe?)
HKLM\Software\Google\Update\ClientStateMedium\{8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96} is created and usagestats is written, but never read. I will delete the key if the only value in it is usagestats.
HKLM\Software\Google\Common\Rlz is opened and a single value read. It's not created if it does not exist, it appears. I won't do anything about this since it's never written to.
Signature automatically removed for being too awesome.