CreateProcessWithLogonW

Thanks Elvin. This program requires to run as administrator as it is used to load software onto a users PC regardless of their access level. It runs in the background. Changes to the HKLM are written OK, but i need to be able to get to the HKCU of the actual logged on user to write any changes there. If I was not logged on as the administrator then any requirements to write to the HKLU would be no problem, but as administrator it will not do this?

I don't understand why it won't let you do thius.  I just logged on to a user account (limited) as was able to add and delete keys in the registry under HKCU.  Are you saying that your software gets an access denied or similar error when running it under a non admin user account ?

No. The response is controlled by the installation script. My application runs the script as an administrator because I launch my application using CreateProcessWithLogonW and use the admin credentials. If I try to launch the app with less than admin rights then I will not have the access rights to install the software. The whole network is locked down under Active Directory and so no users have rights to install software.

If I log onto the computer myself as administrator then run the application it will write to the HKCU of the administrator. When the user is logged on (not as administrator) it will not. I think it is looking for the administrators HKCU, but it doesn't write to that either and so it does nothing.

I do obtain the environment variable for the current user and pass that in my call to CreateProcessWithLogonW, but that doesn't seem to do anything.

I think that because I use the CreateProcessWithLogonW  function the system knows that I am an administrator until the process finishes and so does not look for the current users HKCU. There must be a way to retain the current HKCU when I am logged on as an administrator?

I see now.  The only advice I could offer in that sense is to maybe try to use the component TRegistry

It has methods to navigate, read, write, delete and create keys.  instead of using CreateprocessWithLogonw.

sorry I can't be of more help but I think the way you are calling the write to reg process is causing problems that i can't solve (if anyone can).  maybe try a new idea ?

elvin

OK Thanks for your help elvin. Unfortunately I don't have control of the installation otherwise I could write using TRegistry. I am only the vehicle to allow the script to run. I will leave this open and see if anyone else can think of something.

Haven't tried this so its just a quick idea, but could you script not spawn a standard process that would do the updating to the registry, or add an entry into the RunOnce section that would make the neccessary changes when the user next logs on

regards

It would be a good idea, but the scripts can come from anywhere. Most of them just run an install (eg installshield) which has been created by a software vendor. My problem would seem to be the environment that the script is running in. As administrator I don't seem to be able to see the HKCU of the current user? I think if that was available then it would be updated?

just three sidenotes, i guess they wont help very much but who knows :)

1.) the registry only consists of two hives: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS. all other roots are only links to within one of those two hives. and HKEY_CURRENT_USER just points to a subkey under HKEY_USERS. i hope this is not your initial problem. try it with a full path instead - you can look up the users-key and should findout which one is then one of the "local" logged on's.

2.) if the script runs when windows starts, there is a possibility that noone is logged in already. in this case the subkey ".DEFAULT" is used as current user in the registry.

3.) TRegistry is awful. use plain registry calls instead. looking at the registry.pas itself gives you a good overview on how to touch that apis, but when you use them yourself instead of just using the TRegistry-simple-tion you might also be able to use security contexts here.

Hello again.

I think I am on the wrong path here. I will need to think this through further.
I can make a copy of the HKLU before and after the installation. I can then get two files and  compare the differences. I tried to open them as a with  a TStringList.loadfromfile, but this didn't work as it would only read the first few characters in the file? I thought I could compare the differences, keep what had changed and then update the current user registry from this. I don't understand why it wouldn't read the files as they can be read in notepad?

if you want to try that make sure youre saving the reg-files in the "Win9x-/NT4" format, because the other formats will give you unicode files, and TStringLists arent unicode-compatible as far as i know :)

Thanks for that information.  I was using     reg export  hkcu ........  This creates the .reg  file. I don't know how I could copy the HKCU in any other way. Perhaps there is a better way? How could I convert this file to Win9x-/NT4 format?

OK. I have found that I need to use 'regedit /a ...... etc to create this file. I can now create the before and after image of the registry, compare the differences and retain only the changes. I can then update the registry of a HKCU with this info, which is what i wanted to achieve.

Thanks to you all for your help.