Question

what i am trying to do is to have multiple
user names and folder paths in one key.

so i have this structure

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

— SOFTWARE

— XYZ

— userDB

now in userDB i have the info like this

> NAME    TYpe   Data
> 
> Admin  Reg_sz  C:\Desktop
> 
> Admin2 REG_SZ  C:\xyz\logs

how can i read the values in userDB…

any suggestions.. thanks

i tried this code:

            RegistryKey masterKey = Registry.LocalMachine.CreateSubKey("SOFTWARE\\xyz");
        if (masterKey == null)
        {
            //Console.WriteLine("Null Masterkey!");
        }
        else
        {

            table.Rows.Add(false, masterKey.GetValue("userDB"), DateTime.Now);
            dataGridView2.DataSource = table;
            //Console.WriteLine("MyKey = {0}", masterKey.GetValue("userDB"));
        }
        masterKey.Close();

but i get the error
Access to the registry key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\xyz’ is denied.

Answer 1

While you talk about reading values in your topic, your code actually writes to the registry.

You can’t write to most of the HKLM part of the registry by default as a limited user. A limited users may not destroy/manipulate these keys because that’s a security risk.

You could have your setup program(running with admin privs) change the permissions for your shared registry key. But that’s bad style, and I wouldn’t do it.

When using asp.net there might be additional restrictions related to the medium trust model.

You have:

RegistryKey masterKey = Registry.LocalMachine.CreateSubKey("SOFTWARE\\xyz");

RegistryKey.CreateSubKey is documented as:

Creates a new subkey or opens an existing subkey for write access.

Opening for write access most likely requires write privileges.

RegistryKey.OpenSubKey is used to open a key for read access. So it most likely requires no writing privileges.