Problem
You
want to read and/or update registry for a user other than yourself in using an
application.
Solved
I cannot take credit or create the nth
entry for this well documented solution.
The interwebs tells you how to do so
using Windows API advapi32.dll,
follow the yellow brick road HERE.
In this post I just want to share what I
learned while implementing the API code.
Lessons Learned:
RegLoadKey returns
STATUS 1314 [ERROR_PRIVILEGE_NOT_HELD]:
Application must run with Admin access/rights
RegLoadKey returns
STATUS 32 [ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION]:
Application cannot load the Hive file
while the target user is logged on
RegUnLoadKey returns
STATUS 5 [ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED]:
Registry Key must be closed before
unloading Hive file. I combined the advapi32 API code with Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey code, I had to execute RegistryKey.Close before
unloading file.
Not there yet:
So my initial user registry update solution
using hive load had the following issues in the production environment:
·
Alternating
between [ERROR_PRIVILEGE_NOT_HELD] and [ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION] depending on user
logged on when the application executed
·
Hogging
and sometimes corrupting the user hive
I downgraded my solution to a simpler
design as per the next blog entry.
