In Usage view looking at Apps there are occasionally duplicated App names. At present I have to return to the All view to check what the difference is between the duplicated names. I’d like the same application info to be available wherever the application name appears.
In this example below, the executable images for Avira Product Updater are in different folders:
Thanks for your feedback. I haven’t seen this much myself on my PC. I wonder why they have two product updaters like that? I guess we could put a + next to apps with the same name over and over, but then it might make it easier for malware to hide in our “apps” list.
Yes, it is strange that different app versions are shown as different apps. It is not some big problem, but after 1 year of usage, there will be great number of apps listed.
I had a further look at why there is a second updater. It is in a temporary folder (c:\programdata\avira\antivirus\temp\selfupdate\update.exe) that is created so Avira can update itself including the update program (c:\program files (x86)\avira\antivirus\update.exe). After the update is complete the temporary folder and the temporary update image are deleted.
App sort is needed in the Usage and Alert views
I imagine that there are other programs using this update method but apparently not many of them also have network access. It is a pain that I cannot sort the App usage view or alerts to show applications in name sequence to make it easy to see duplicated or similar names. In the previous example they were together, here they are spaced apart. It is possible that I couldn’t see them both on the same screen:
Other programs that create duplicated application names or have the same file pathname
Microsoft Office is similar but appears to create a folder for the new version
version 16.0.7167.1332 = c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\clicktorun\officec2rclient.exe
360 Total Security antivirus does something different by giving the live updater a different description
360 update module = c:\program files (x86)\360\total security\liveupdate360.exe
360 live update = c:\program files (x86)\360\total security\liveupdate360.exe
Hot tip?
For anyone looking at the application files: long file pathnames are not displayed completely and it is not obvious how to copy the file path. You can’t in the Usage view. Instead you have to use the Alerts view then right-click on the program icon and right-click on the “Path” string in the pop-up info window to get the “Copy” option.
