John:
If I run Thunderbird as admin, it leaves
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird
and a sub key.
Is there any way to prevent this or is it just unchangable?
New: Wise Force Deleter (Apr 25, 2024), Platform 29.5 (Apr 24, 2024)
1,000+ portable packages, 1.1 billion downloads
Please donate today
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
about these keys???
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Simeon,
I have:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird\Desktop
also note:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3
Currently I'm at FFP 2.0.0.4 ???
and a couple of other Mozilla related keys.
If the only Mozilla products I'm running are TBP and FFP could I just delete all the Mozilla keys, assuming they are from earlier versions or the result of "crash" that prevented the launcher from cleaning up ?
My user is always an administrator.
Timothy Clark
(\__/)(='.'=)(}>
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
deleted.
Maybe there are reg keys that are only created if you are ad Admin???
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Anybody know if this happens when run as a non-admin, too? I think this may be new to 2.0, but I'm not sure and didn't notice it in testing.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John,
I would be willing to login as a non administrative user to test it.
I should delete All the Mozilla keys in the registry first?
Is that correct?
Or should I just delete the TB related ones?
Should I do a restart to be safe or would logging off be enough?
Timothy Clark
(\__/)(='.'=)(}>
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
that the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-part of the registry can only be written to with admin rights and therefore these reg keys only appear on Admin accounts?
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
That's true. And probably why I didn't notice it in a registry check after testing with a standard account.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
only on a standard account?
So maybe there are other keys...
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
First I deleted all Mozilla keys.
Restarted the machine.
Logged in as "Joe" [non-administrator]
Navigated to FFP [which was buried deep inside the "My Documents" of "Tim"
Launched FFP and TBP
Exited and Logged off.
{Really strange thing happened, to be explained below}
Logged in as "Tim"[an administrator]
Check registry hklm...
No Mozilla or FF or TB keys found.
Launched FFP and TBP.
Exited.
Found
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird\Desktop
were created.
Now about the REALLY STRANGE THING mentioned above.
When I logged out of "Joe"
The was a message on his icon [on the Windows Login Screen]
That HE [user JOE] had 23 UNREAD MESSAGES.
I have never seen that before, even for my own user!!!
It appears that TB reported to Windows that there were 23 unread messages and that information is REMAINING in Windows SOMEWHERE. How did that happen and how do I get rid of it?
Timothy Clark
(\__/)(='.'=)(}>
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
Nearly all mail clients report this back to Windows. That's why the launcher has (for a LONG time now) backed up and restored this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail
It works on admin, limited and guest accounts correctly (I've tested it). Not sure how you got it to leave it behind... unless you use an INI file in which case all bets are off.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks John
I'm glad it [how it occurred] was so easily explained.
Still don't know why, I'm not using anything other than the default TBP settings.
Anyway I went back in to Joe, navigated to TBP again, checked mail, marked all as Read and that seemed to have cleared it up. If it was only a simple and common registry setting I'm not going to worry about it
But to the original question, It does seem TBP [not FFP] is leaving 2 registry settings for Administrators, but not for limited users.
Mine are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla Thunderbird\Desktop
Oh, in case anyone is wondering how user Joe, got into user Tim's "My Documents", Permissions were granted.
Could that have confused the situation?
Timothy Clark
(\__/)(='.'=)(}>
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
Trusting in the feature description "Plus, the portable version leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can take your email and adress book with you wherever you go" I convinced my very sceptical friend to use his sailing boat notebook for receiving my e-mails. When he started the notebook the next time he found the message on his Windows XP log-in-screen: "account Hulk54 has 72 unread mails" He was very annoyed and it lastet some time to convince him to look in the registry for the key. Finally we found the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail containing my personal account name.
This never occurred with my own PCs. But now I know that the above mentioned description is not true. I can not be sure that no personal information is stored by TBP in the registry of the PC I ran it on.
Is there a way to guarantee that this is avoided? Without being the admin of the machine I run TBP on?
Hulk 54
Did you have a PC crash?
Thunderbird creates an unread mail entry in the standard Windows XP location in the registry... there is
way to prevent this. However, when you exit Thunderbird Portable, this registry entry is deleted. Unless of course, the PC crashes. Or you turn on Thunderbird multiple instance mode in the INI file (which is NOT recommended).
Ensure you're using the most recent Thunderbird Portable launcher. The easiest way to ensure this is to install the latest Thunderbird Portable right over your current one (all data will be preserved).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you for the quick response. Now I understand the tricky meaning of “leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on”. It does not mean: no registry entry, but: “deletes any personal information in the registry after use if normally terminated”. Must have been written by a lawyer.
Indeed, I don't know if there was a crash (my friend didn’t mention something like that).
What INI file do you mean? I use the latest version of TBP and am not familiar with the configuration possibilities. Before TBP I used the German AK-Mail which never left something in the registry of the used computer. I changed because TBP’s ability of SMTP authentication which AK-Mail does not provide.
Hulk54
It's not tricky at all. It temporarily leaves a non-personal entry in the registry that's whatever you name your email account in TB. Mine are called "Personal", "Work", "PortableApps", etc. You *don't* have to be an ass about it ("must have been written by a lawyer", indeed). It's the nickname of an account, not an email address. I'd hardly call it personal.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Sorry, you are right. As far as *personal* information on a third party computer is concerned you can try to avoid it by renaming your account with an *anonymous* nickname. But in my case with the PC of a friend it is different. The question was: does TBP touch his registry or not. Having misunderstood the feature list, I promised it won't (and when it turned out that this was wrong, he over-reacted).
But anyway, now I know how it works, thank you again!
Thunderbird Portable touches two registry keys while running. One for itself for an install setting (only if Thunderbird isn't installed) and then the Unread Mail key. Both of these get backed up before you run Thunderbird Portable and then restored when you exit. The only time either would be left behind is if the whole PC crashes. Even if Thunderbird itself crashes, the launcher (ThunderbirdPortable.exe) still cleans up after it.
The unread mail counts in Windows can be messed up by a few other things as well. I've created a Reset Unread Mail Counts tool that will easily reset them for you.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you for the comprehensive explanation and for the new tool.
I think it would be a good idea to set your following paragraph on the main page of Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition or at least on the Support page:
Thunderbird Portable touches two registry keys while running. One for itself for an install setting (only if Thunderbird isn't installed) and then the Unread Mail key. Both of these get backed up before you run Thunderbird Portable and then restored when you exit. The only time either would be left behind is if the whole PC crashes. Even if Thunderbird itself crashes, the launcher (ThunderbirdPortable.exe) still cleans up after it.
This would have prevented me of using it on a sensitive PC.
BTW: I am enthusiastic about Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition!
Most portable apps touch something on a PC. Either the registry... or temporarily creating a directory or file in Application Data... or using temp files... they all do something. Portable apps, the ones from this site, are designed to do far less, even temporarily, than other portable software platforms. And, unlike other platforms, PortableApps.com doesn't leave anything behind. Even outside the application level, Windows itself will contain records of the files run from a portable device. That's just the way it is.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!