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windowswindows-7windows-vistaregistry

HKLM registry doubt


My application updates some registry fields related to licensing under HKLM. This is for accessing the information for all users in the system. This makes us to make our application run as administrator. Is there any other location in registry where I can keep information which can be accessed by all users?


Solution

  • No there is not. If you have to make a modification that will affect/be visible to all users, you have to deal with UAC or elevate your application on startup. This is part of the design of UAC. If, however, you were to write to a file you could grant all users access to that file without UAC interference.

    If, however, you are only reading the registry, you can do this without elevating your security rights. Therefore, if you write once to the registry and then just read it later, you can do so when only elevating your privileges once.

    Here is an article on playing nice with UAC:

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163486.aspx