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Administrator doesn't have rights to delete bad registry keys RRS feed

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    Why would I want to build any app that Windows regedit will not allow me to as administrator to delete the registry keys?

    Installed a printer, windows thought it could install the printer better a second time.  then quit printing to the printer, and then installs copy1 of the printer and that works for a while after I change the connection method to USB from Parallel. 

     

    So I decide to try removing the printer but then it installs copy1 again and won't let me rename the printer to get rid of the copy1 annotation.  Since there are no uninstall scripts on this operating system you would think that MICROSOFT would permit ADMINISTRATORS to remove the registry keys as nilly willy as they desired.

    I am the computers ADMINISTRATOR.  I DO OWN 88 COMPUTERS.  I DO LIKE TO PERFECT MY SYSTEMS.  And I would be a lot happier if a simple thing as being able to delete a registry key when it needs to be gone would be a great resolution.  But instead I have to freaking reload the pc from scratch to do the simple thing of installing a printer.  Now that is real smart!

     

    Sunday, January 1, 2012 4:08 PM

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    An Administrator always has the ability to Take Ownership of anything and reset the permissions on it, so there is no situation in which it's impossible to delete a registry key. However there are plenty where it is deeply ill-advised as cleanly removing something requires changes in multiple places, some of which may not be obvious or documented and partially deleting something may well lead to future problems and instability.

    I don't think I've ever seen a printer setup get so confused that I'd advise manually deleting registry keys. On the few occasions I've seen it stubbornly refuse to allow a rename or such, I've usually found that rebooting and re-attempting it is usually sufficient.

    Sunday, January 1, 2012 7:01 PM