How to handle registry via C#

How to handle registry key to achiecve our purpose via C# is very important especially for our testing. We often need to alter some registry key to change windows settings or read some window settings. Inorder handle registry we need using namespace Microsoft.Win32. Two main class provided are Registry and RegistryKey, Registry is main responsible for get static objects, and RegistryKey is provided methods to create and read registry. The main static methods in Registry:

• ClassRoot : Provide access the root "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" 
• CurrentConfig: Provide access the roor "HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG"
• CurrentUser: Provide access the root"HKEY_CURRENT_USER"
• LocalMachine: Provide accee the root "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE"
• USers: Provide access the root "HKEY_USER"
• PerformanceData: Provide access the root "HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA"

RegistryKey class is more important to handle registry, the main operations we used are use this class.

Property: Name, SubKeyCount and ValueCount.

Method: OpenSubKey, CreateSubKey, DeleteSubKey, Close, GetSubKeyName, GetValue, SetValue and DeleteValue. 

Static Methods Example: 

Open Registry(If need edit registry, set parameter set value as true)

　　Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\SomeKey"); Only read

　　Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\SomeKey",  true); Read and Write 

　　Registry.CurrentUSer.DeleteSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\SomeKey");

Object Methods Example:

Get Subkey and Edit

　　RegistryKey rk = RegistryKey.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"SoftWare\Microsoft", true);

　　rk.SetValue("Name", "Eric");

　　rk.SetValue("Version", "1.0.0");

　　string name = rk.GetValue("Name"); 

　　rk.DeleteValue("Version");　　//Delete registryKey "Version"

 

 Note: 

1.If you need to handle registry both in x86 and amd64 OS, you need attention to get above methods. Becasue different type of OS ,the registry path is different. You need reposition them like below under amd64 machine:
　　Registry localMachine = RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(RegistryHive.LocalMachine, RegistryView.Registry64) 

2. All operations about registry, we should got admin privilige first in case of some exception or errors. And we should more careful when we handle registry especially delete some keys.