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RegistryKey element

Used for organization of child RegistryValue elements or to create a registry key (and optionally remove it during uninstallation).

Attributes

Action

The Action attribute has been deprecated. In most cases, you can simply omit @Action. If you need to force Windows Installer to create an empty key or recursively delete the key, use the ForceCreateOnInstall or ForceDeleteOnUninstall attributes instead. This attribute’s value must be one of the following:

  • create: Creates the key, if absent, when the parent component is installed.
  • createAndRemoveOnUninstall: Creates the key, if absent, when the parent component is installed then remove the key with all its values and subkeys when the parent component is uninstalled. Note that this value is useful only if your program creates additional values or subkeys under this key and you want an uninstall to remove them. MSI already removes all values and subkeys that it creates, so this option just adds additional overhead to uninstall.
  • none: Does nothing; this element is used merely in WiX authoring for organization and does nothing to the final output. This is the default value.

ForceCreateOnInstall

yesno

Set this attribute to ‘yes’ to create an empty key, if absent, when the parent component is installed. This value is needed only to create an empty key with no subkeys or values. Windows Installer creates keys as needed to store subkeys and values. The default is “no”.

ForceDeleteOnUninstall

yesno

Set this attribute to ‘yes’ to remove the key with all its values and subkeys when the parent component is uninstalled. Note that this value is useful only if your program creates additional values or subkeys under this key and you want an uninstall to remove them. MSI already removes all values and subkeys that it creates, so this option just adds additional overhead to uninstall. The default is “no”.

Id

string

Primary key used to identify this particular entry. If this attribute is not specified, an identifier will be generated.

Key

string

The localizable key for the registry value. If the parent element is a RegistryKey, this value may be omitted to use the path of the parent, or if its specified it will be appended to the path of the parent.

Root

RegistryRootType

The predefined root key for the registry value. This attribute’s value must be one of the following:

  • HKMU: A per-user installation will make the operation occur under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. A per-machine installation will make the operation occur under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
  • HKCR: Operation occurs under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. When using Windows 2000 or later, the installer writes or removes the value from the HKCU\Software\Classes hive during per-user installations. When using Windows 2000 or later operating systems, the installer writes or removes the value from the HKLM\Software\Classes hive during per-machine installations.
  • HKCU: Operation occurs under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. It is recommended to set the KeyPath attribute to yes when setting this value for writing values in order to ensure that the installer writes the necessary registry entries when there are multiple users on the same computer.
  • HKLM: Operation occurs under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
  • HKU: Operation occurs under HKEY_USERS.

Children

Permission
ACL permission
PermissionEx (Util extension)
RegistryKey
RegistryValue

Parents

RegistryKey
Component

Windows Installer references

Registry Table