Unable to see certain HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries in RegEdit

Question

I'm using HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to set a variable at the time of install. These need to be seen by all users on a machine and are only read by them.

I use Inno to create the entry. It's running as admin, so it should have adequate rights that virtualization doesn't kick in ... or am I misunderstanding?

My application can read the entry (even as a limited user in Win7) BUT I can't see them in RegEdit or RegEditX 3.0. I CAN see them in RegEditX 2.0 though. Weird.

I don't understand why my Delphi app can see the entry, but the RegEdit programs above can't.

I believe that this might have something to so with virtualization (first answer here: Cannot read config data from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE on Vista).

But, I can't even see the registry entry in question under HKCU\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE.

Is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE so deprecated that I should be avoiding it completely? How is a developer now supposed to save data for all users - just in {commomappdata}, which usually is C:\Program Data... ??

You might want to look into `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node` if you're on 64-bit. — Polynomial, Nov 21 '11 at 16:50
@Polynomial Surely that's the answer. Why don't you post it as such? — David Heffernan, Nov 21 '11 at 17:13
Wasn't entirely sure, but looks like the case. I'll post as an answer. — Polynomial, Nov 21 '11 at 17:15
@polynomial I'm 99.9% certain this will be it. I bet that RegeditX is a 32 bit process from the old days. — David Heffernan, Nov 21 '11 at 17:21
@DavidHeffernan - Most likely. The interesting thing is that explicit operations on `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node` in 32-bit processes seems to work for me... — Polynomial, Nov 21 '11 at 17:22
@Polynomial That makes no sense. Perhaps there is code in the redirector to protect you from yourself!!! — David Heffernan, Nov 21 '11 at 17:24
I am reminded of Xzibit: *"Yo dawg, I herd u like redirects, so we put redirects in yo redirects so you can redirect while you redirect"* — Polynomial, Nov 21 '11 at 17:26

score 24 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 21 '11 at 17:23

24

64-bit versions of Windows emulate 32-bit functionality through the "Windows on Windows" (WoW) subsystem. In the case of the registry, they move the 32-bit keys over to a special subkey for compatibility reasons.

The keys will be in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node.

This is the registry analogue of the file system redirector that maps system32 to SysWOW64.

More details can be found on the MSDN topic about the Registry Redirector.

edited Nov 21 '11 at 17:23

David Heffernan

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answered Nov 21 '11 at 17:16

Polynomial

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Thank you. I thought I was going mad not being able to find some records in the registry that I knew were hiding in there! – Adam Jun 16 '16 at 13:00

Unable to see certain HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries in RegEdit

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