Changing System Registration Information in Installers in Windows 7

Question

After installing Windows 7 onto my laptop, I first created an administrator account "Backup" (as a safeguard in case something went bizzare with my user account). After that I created my administrator user acount. However, whenever I install software logged in from my administrator account, some software which display user names (as per the Registered to: label) (including Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional) display it as "Backup"!

Is it because I created "Backup" first? Is there any way to make these installers display my username when I install them from my administrator account? Just because not all software allow to edit the Registered to: field information.

Answer 1

It is as you guessed: The first account you create is considered the official registrant of the system, and their information is stored in the registry where installers access it as you have noted.

You can verify this by running winver.exe and seeing what information shows under the licensing section at the bottom.

Solution is from here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/quick-tip-change-the-registered-owner-in-windows/

Open Regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

There'll you'll find RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys which you can modify as desired.