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I am looking for a way to access the registry of other users on a computer so I can copy them.
The idea is that I am trying to get a complicated Delphi app to compile and run on more than one profile.
I found a way once to do it with some Windows management tool, but I can't find it now.
I don't know the other user's password, so I can't log in as them or do a "run as".
Vaccano
Posted 2009-09-24T19:42:15.857
Reputation: 5 977
24
you can use regedit for this. Open regedit and select HKEY_USERS then go to File->Load Hive. Browse to the users Hive file, usually NTUSER.DAT located at %userprofile%.
This of course requires you to be admin or have access to the users hive file.
Paxxi
Posted 2009-09-24T19:42:15.857
Reputation: 6 952
1
If you are looking to do a basic profile copy, I prefer using the user profile copy feature in windows XP. To do this you will need two accounts. I usually use my own account and a generic local admin account. You first configure your own account with all the registry settings and fixes you want. Then, restart your computer (to force all programs to release control of the ntuser.dat file) and log into the generic admin account. Once into windows, right click on My computer and go to properties. Under the Advanced tab, you will see the "User Profile" section with a settings button. When you press that button, a list of all locally stored profiles will come up. From here, you can copy one profile onto another. All you do is put in the location of the ntsuer.dat file "C:\Documents and Settings\exampleuser".
This tool works surprisingly well for how simple it is. I find it's a great way to implement default registry settings. You can copy your profile to the "default user" and then all future users will have those settings given to them. I usually use something like delprof to purge all users, copy my profile to default user, and then have other users log back on. Make sure to backup any locally stored data before you start.
It's a lot less dangerous then using regedit since you take a working profile and copy it. The main downside is that some programs still won't work correctly even after this. Though that is mainly due to badly designed code.
Hope this helps
Doltknuckle
Posted 2009-09-24T19:42:15.857
Reputation: 5 813
0
Use regedit, if you have administrative rights to the remote computer you can select File... Connect Network Registry, and type the name or search for the computer that you want to connect to.
joeqwerty
Posted 2009-09-24T19:42:15.857
Reputation: 5 259
Regedit says that the file is in use (of course it is). What should I do now? – mahmoodvcs – 2015-08-19T06:03:18.937
@mahmoodvcs: Sounds like it's already loaded – likely somewhere under the same HKEY_USERS. – user1686 – 2015-11-19T13:39:44.177
Thank yoooouuuuu!!! This just saved my day. I had an entry in my Run that restarts Windows immediately (I was using it for some testing). Using this technique I could delete that entry from startup. Thanks again. – Sнаđошƒаӽ – 2016-05-10T09:21:33.033
Which file is it in Windows 7? I tried opening C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\UserClass.dat with MiTec Windows Registery Recovery but it shows other content than HKEY_CURRENT_USER in regedit... – Dalvik VM – 2016-06-07T09:09:50.050
2Aah it exists C:\Users<username>\NTUSER.DAT but it is not visible even when invisible files are visible. – Dalvik VM – 2016-06-07T09:15:55.380
4It's worth noting that the Load Hive menu option is only enabled when the
HKEY_USERSorHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEkey is selected. – Richard Ev – 2014-02-21T15:52:11.327