Cannot import edited Registry hive

Sebastian42 said:

I am puzzled whether this constitutes a caution against using PowerRun, or the opposite...

PowerRun is like a gas stove.
It's a great way to cook, but you need to remember to turn the gas OFF when you're done.

In other words... you need to remember to set the keys you edited back to Trusted Installer when you're finished.



Personally, I just change the key I want to edit, to the Administrators account, manually.
There's very few things that need editing that are set to Trusted Installer anyway.
And once you learn how to do it manually... setting it back to Trusted Installer when you're finished is easy.



Here's an example... to remove Quick Access from File Explorer, you need to edit a key that you can't access.
So you need to change the ownership of the key from Trusted Installer to Administrators, first.
This is how I do that. Then when you're finished... make sure you set it back to Trusted Installer.

1. Open the Windows Registry as an administrator by launching the Run command using the Windows + R keyboard shortcut, typing "regedit", and hitting Enter.

2. Navigate to the following registry path:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}\ShellFolder

3. Now you need to change the permissions of ShellFolder, right-click ShellFolder, select Permissions, then click the Advanced button.

4. At the top of Advanced Security Settings for ShellFolder, change the ownership of the folder to "Administrators".

5. To do this, click Change, click Advanced, click the Find Now button, and from "search results" select "Administrators", then click OK, OK again, then Apply, hit OK, and hit OK one last time to close the ShellFolder Permissions box.

6. Now... Under "Group or User Names", choose: Administrators and put a check mark in... "Full Control"
Then click Apply and OK.

7. With that completed, we can now change the settings to remove Quick Access from File Explorer.

8. Inside "ShellFolder", double-click Attributes, and change data value from a0100000 to a0600000, and click OK.

9. You can now either restart Windows 10 or open the Task Manager, find and select Windows Explorer, and click Restart from bottom-right corner.

Steps 3, 4, 5 and 6 are how you change the ownership.

Sebastian42 said:

Ghot - Thank you for the detailed instructions, but I can not see where PowerRun fits into that scheme.

I launched PowerRun and clicked on the 'Launch Registry Editor' tool, navigated to the entry I want to delete, but got the same response as without PowerRun : "Unable to delete all specified values." Have I missed some step ?

I don't know, I don't use PowerRun.
What key are you trying to edit?

There are some keys that you can't edit even as Trusted Installer.
Like maybe a game save file.

Sebastian42 said:

I could list the key, but it is one of several.
What is the point of PowerRun, if there are STILL obstacles to deletion ?

As I hinted at.... there are different "levels" of ownership.
Like games for example... not only do they have a high level of ownership, but the values that one my want to edit are usually coded as well.

Another thing that's probably next to impossible to edit would be things like product keys or activation.

It's hard to be more specific, without knowing what you're trying to do. What you're trying to edit.

Sebastian42 said:

I don't want to MODIFY names - I want to delete some entries, related to an optical scanner, because re-installation of the driver that used to work LEAVES Device Manager saying that the driver is problematical.

Drivers are a whole different ball game. I'd say that 100% of the time, the solution to driver problems isn't even in the registry. Well... I mean the solution can be achieved from outside the registry.



There's a way to test... make a full system backup, then do a clean install of Windows.
See if the driver works then.

If it doesn't then the problem is with the driver.
If it does, then the problem is that you aren't cleanly uninstalling the old driver.



Or to put it another way... for a problem like this, I would contact the optical scanner people.
Be it tech support, or forums, etc. They may have a driver removal tool or something.

A lot of drivers employ kernel hooks. These NEED removal tools. They are "below" even the registry.



You should probably try Autoruns > Drivers tab first.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sy...loads/autoruns

Sebastian42 said:

Be that as it may - since you are suggesting TRIALLING - the trial I want to do is to clear the registry of references to the optical, scanner; reinstall the original scanner and see if that now works.

That's what a clean install of Windows would do.... clear the registry of any reference to the optical scanner.


If you don't want to do that... then Autoruns is the tool you want.
See my edit concerning Autoruns, above.