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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-11T14:44:40+00:00

I thought this would be dead simple however…. Right, so all I’m simply trying

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I thought this would be dead simple however….

Right, so all I’m simply trying to do is read a value from my registry. I have been through several examples but can’t get any of them to work. I’ve also tried running my application in Admin mode and still nothing. Can someone please help?

From all my examples that I’ve tried, I’ll use the simplest one.

This works:

Dim val As String
val = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("Hardware\Description\System\CentralProcessor\0").GetValue("Identifier").ToString()
MsgBox(val)

This (the one I want) doesn’t:

Dim val As String
val = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\PTSClient").GetValue("ConfigDB").ToString()
MsgBox(val)

THe latter path and value is one that I’ve manually created in the registry. I’ve checked the permissions between the two and they are the exact same. I’ve also tried running the app as administrator. I get a runtime error on the val= line, it says: Use the “new” keyword to create an object instance.

Any ideas? All the various online examples have failed and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why…

Cheers,
J

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Well, I have tried your code with a sample application compiled for x86 and, as expected, it fails with a null value exception.

    I assume you are building an application for x86 mode and running in a 64bit environment.
    Of course, if this is not the case, let me know and I will delete this answer.

    In the situation outlined above, the calls to read/write in the LocalMachine.Software registry path will be automatically changed by the Operating System to read/write in the Software\Wow6432Node subkey and thus, your code is unable to find your manually inserted key (“SOFTWARE\PTSClient”).
    This code will give a null value as return from Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\PTSClient") leading to the failure to get the ConfigDB value.

    You need to add your keys/values to the Software\Wow6432Node path or compile your application for AnyCPU mode or let your code write the value to the register (it will be redirected to the Wow6432Node).

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