CODEWITHSUNDEEP
uwpregistrydesktop-bridgeregedit
Seeker
Seeker

Reputation: 572

How to use RegEdit utility to see Virtual Registry for a Win32 UWP app

Is it possible to see the Virtual Registry of my Win32 UWP app (desktop-bridge converted)? I know that all programmatic access goes to the virtual registry and that works. But I want to view it with RegEdit. Any solutions?

I remember viewing it about a year back but don't remember the details.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 651

Answers (3)

Sahil Singh
Sahil Singh

Reputation: 3797

You can open regedit.exe in the context of a UWP app. The regedit.exe spawned this was will show you the same registry view as visible to the app.

Step 1: Get App ID, and Family name of the package

PS > $pkg=Get-AppxPackage -Name "*package_name*"
PS > $familyName=$pkg.PackageFamilyName
PS > $id=(Get-AppxPackageManifest $pkg).package.applications.application.id
PS > $params = @{
    AppId             = "$($id)"
    PackageFamilyName = "$($familyName)"
    Command           = 'regedit.exe'
}

Step 2: Wrap these params into a hashmap and pass it to Invoke-CommandInDesktopPackage. This command should be run in an elevated powershell prompt.

PS > $params = @{
     AppId             = "$($id)"
     PackageFamilyName = "$($familyName)"
     Command           = 'regedit.exe'
 }
PS > Invoke-CommandInDesktopPackage @params

The regedit.exe window which now opens will have registry keys from the UWP app's context.

regedit.exe running in context of a UWP app

Upvotes: 0

Bogdan Mitrache
Bogdan Mitrache

Reputation: 11023

Yes, you can. We built a free tool called Hover that allows you to launch an external process in the context of your MSIX/APPX container. Using this tool you can launch Regedit, cmd.exe, PowerShell, or other processes inside your container, and thus have access to the same resources your app does.

Upvotes: 4

Roy Li - MSFT
Roy Li - MSFT

Reputation: 8681

Based on the document, App packages contain a registry.dat file, which serves as the logical equivalent of HKLM\Software in the real registry. But there is no clear explanation about where it is stored. And all writes under HKCU are copy-on-written to a private per-user, per-app location. For more information here: Registry

So currently, there is no good way to check that.

Upvotes: -1

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