I'm trying to create a registry comparison that checks that a certain string value under HKLM\Software\... is not empty. (The comparison serves as a detection-condition for feature X.) PROBLEM: It is obviously not allowed to leave the "Compare To" field empty. The error is simply something like "please enter a value to be compared to".
Operator: Any Condition Check: Registry Comparison Registry Key: HKLM\Software\... Value name: Conversion: String Comparison: not equal Compare To: should remain empty ...
Is there a trick I'm missing? Any help will be greatly appreciated 🙂
If you're merely looking to see if the key or value exists, prefer to use the Registry Exists condition. If you explicitly need to ensure that it exists and has a non-empty string for its value data, I think this may be a limitation in the current condition implementation. While the warning in the condition editor can be ignored, there's a run-time error if the Compare To value is empty. Is that run-time error what you're asking to address? In your ideal world, are you strictly looking for non-empty, or are there additional aspects to the value data that you would prefer to validate?
Yes I meant exactly that run-time error you mentioned. I have found a workaround that allows checking for empty/non-empty Registry-String-values: Compare to:
, where P is a property with empty value - that works.
Ah, great workaround. I should have thought of that. 🙂
Note that you don't have to explicitly define the property for it to be empty, and in some ways using a crazy mix of letters in its name may help avoid it being accidentally overridden by an end user. That said, I'd probably go for something easy to understand, like [EmptyString].
