Am running XP Pro. I have administrator rights. I installed a utility (PC Mag's Context Edit). When I try to run that utility I get a message saying says the program cannot access a certain registry key: Could not obtain KEY_QUERY_VALUE access to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\??a???_auto_file When I look for this key in the registry I can find it but it is protected. What can I do? Reinstalling the utility does not help. (1) Maybe I can delete the protected key so I can do another re- install and hopefully a non-protected key will be created. (2) Or maybe I should somehow give the program access to the protected key?
######################### Before you try those things, look at any .ini files that the program may have created. A corrupted .ini file could be causing that error. I had something like that happen w/ some proprietary mortgage software. For some reason, white spaces in any other part of the ini file except before a bracketed heading would cause an exception. Something similar may be happening to you. Also look for any references to that key. donnie
There are a number of possible explanations. One tool that may help with one particular type of problem is RegDelNull, available (along with many other excellent tools) from sysinternals: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RegDelNull.html Incidentally, the best registry editor by far is Resplendent Registrar, available from: http://www.resplendence.com/main Sadly, it's not free, but it's well worth the money. Regards,