cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
mumbles
Level 7

Windows Vista/7 HKLM and HKCU

I know , i know this has been beat to death.... but humor me.

We have a plugin, that installs via the HKCU/software/microsoft/office/excel/addins/ key. We need this to install for all users. But HKLM is no longer allowed without elevation which is not possible for our user base.

So how does one apply a registry key amongst all user profiles on a given machine? Am i missing something here?

Please help an idiot. Thx.
Labels (1)
0 Kudos
(5) Replies
MichaelU
Level 12 Flexeran
Level 12 Flexeran

It sounds like you have mutually incompatible requirements. You'd best get that resolved at the source of these requirements. The only approach that comes close to being both limited user and applied for all of them is an HKCU key which gets installed for each user as he or she launches your application. However as an add-in you probably don't have an application that they launch directly, so this will not generally get installed.
0 Kudos
mumbles
Level 7

Michael,

You mean wanting to place this reg key in all user profiles is incorrect? Someone else must have faced this before....

Back in the good ol XP days, you slapped it into HKLM and you were golden. I went looking for documentation and came up with nothing.

There has to be a way to distribute across HKCU's. I don't think it's a requirements problem. Please explain.
0 Kudos
MichaelU
Level 12 Flexeran
Level 12 Flexeran

The way Windows Installer handles this, there are three scenarios. Unless I misunderstand, none of them are exactly what you want

  • Install for all users, write directly to HKLM. Requires administrative privileges.
  • Install for all users, write to HKCU for each user. Still requires administrative privileges for the install, and each user will have to trigger on-demand installation of the per-user components.
  • Install for a single user, write to HKCU for one user. Doesn't require administrative privileges, but only that one user will be able to see it. Other users can also install it on the same computer.
0 Kudos
mumbles
Level 7

MichaelU wrote:
The way Windows Installer handles this, there are three scenarios. Unless I misunderstand, none of them are exactly what you want


  • Install for all users, write to HKCU for each user. Still requires administrative privileges for the install, and each user will have to trigger on-demand installation of the per-user components.


I see what you mean, yes. This is the one we'll need to deal with i suppose. How does one go about forcing this on each profile?
0 Kudos
MichaelU
Level 12 Flexeran
Level 12 Flexeran

There's no good way to do that.
0 Kudos