Creating keys in the Registry from VBA

[crewaustin66]

Friends,

I am having trouble creating a key in the registry from VBA. I have the proper declaration for RegCreateKeyEx. I am able to use the following code to attempt to create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Admin (which already exists). The return value is 0 with a status of 2 meaning "already exists". That's fine but I want to insert/create a GUID key underneath /AppID and I get a return value of 5 which is permissions related. Here is the test code that I am using. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? I seem to have the right permissions for /AppID but this code fails anyway.

Sub TestRegCreateKey()
    Dim secAttr As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
    Dim subkey As String
    Dim retval As Long
    Dim section As Long
    
    section = HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
    
    'subkey = "AppID"
    subkey = "AppID\\{5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}"
    'subkey = "AppID\\Crew"
    
    secAttr.nLength = Len(secAttr) ' size of the structure
    secAttr.lpSecurityDescriptor = 0 ' default security level
    secAttr.bInheritHandle = True ' the default value for this setting


    retval = RegCreateKey(section, subkey, secAttr)


End Sub


Public Function RegCreateKey(section As Long, subkey As String, secAttr As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES) As Long
    '12/29/14 2064 -car- Created function to add new keys to registry


    Dim hregkey As Long ' receives handle to the newly created or opened registry key
    Dim neworused As Long ' receives 1 if new key was created or 2 if an existing key was opened
    Dim retval As Long ' return value
    
    ' Create or open the registry key
    retval = OSRegCreateKeyEx(section, subkey, 0, "", 0, KEY_WRITE, secAttr, hregkey, neworused)
    If retval <> 0 Then ' error during open
        Debug.Print "Error " & retval & " -- aborting."
        End ' terminate the program
    Else
        Debug.Print "Registry key " & section & "\" & subkey & " created or pre-existing."
    End If
End Function

Additional info:
I have a .reg file with this key in it that I can run that works under my userID. That tells me that I have the right permissions.

 

[Colin Legg]

Hi,

Please would you post your declaration of RegCreateKeyEx() and also confirm your OS (eg. Win7 64 bit) and version of Office (eg. 2010 64 bit)?

Thanks

 

[crewaustin66]

Private Declare Function OSRegCreateKeyEx Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegCreateKeyExA" (ByVal hkey As Long, ByVal lpSubKey As String, ByVal Reserved As Long, ByVal lpClass As String, ByVal dwOptions As Long, ByVal samDesired As Long, lpSecurityAttributes As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES, phkResult As Long, lpdwDisposition As Long) As Long

Win7 32 bit. Office 2013 32 bit.

Thanks for the assist,
Crew

 

[Colin Legg]

Hi,

Your code works for me - I was able to create keys under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppId\ - tested on Win7 64bit Office 2010 32 bit.
I am a local admin on my machine. If you are not a local admin then my guess is your Win7 user account control settings is preventing you from creating a new key there programmatically. Try turning it off and then running your code?