Run as administrator, but still "requested registry access is not allowed"

Question

I have a Windows PowerShell script. I logged into Windows as an administrator and run the script with PowerShell running as an administrator, and it worked; I could see all the changes happen after running this script.

But I still get the red error message:

requested registry access is not allowed

which is driving me nuts.

Why am I getting this error and how can I make it go away?

Which part of the registry is it complaining about? Some of the registry is owned by `TrustedInstaller`. Administrator is not enough. — Roger Lipscombe, Mar 27 '13 at 17:09
Does this answer your question? [Set-Acl : Requested registry access is not allowed](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24366162/set-acl-requested-registry-access-is-not-allowed) — chx, May 29 '21 at 07:57

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 27 '13 at 17:34

6

If you run regedit and navigate to the key that you are trying to access with your script, you can right click on it and view the permissions. You can see on that key what permissions Administrator has (Full Control, Read, Special Permissions)

answered Mar 27 '13 at 17:34

PlantationGator

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 07 '21 at 11:06

Try as Local System via psexec

This here worked for me:

get psexec.exe from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/psexec
use psexec.exe -i -s powershell.exe to start a new interactive (-i parameter) powershell.exe window as user Local System (-s parameter).
Inside that new powershell window try your command again.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 27 '20 at 11:24

This PowerShell trick worked for me:

$Path = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.jpeg\UserChoice"
$SubKey = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey($Path, [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKeyPermissionCheck]::ReadWriteSubTree, [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::ChangePermissions)
$Acl = $SubKey.GetAccessControl()
$RemoveAcl = $Acl.Access | Where-Object {$_.AccessControlType -eq "Deny"}
$Acl.RemoveAccessRule($RemoveAcl)
$SubKey.SetAccessControl($Acl)
$SubKey.Close()

**in $Path ==> change this to your path (path after Root folder)

**in $SubKey ==> [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser : change this to your needed root Registry path

This often doesn't work because you are not elevated https://stackoverflow.com/a/35844259/308851 does the job. — chx, May 29 '21 at 07:57

Run as administrator, but still "requested registry access is not allowed"

3 Answers3

Try as Local System via psexec