Can not disable Device Manager using a C++ program

Question

I want to disable Device Manager from my control panel editing registry values. I can do it in C#, but I want to do it in C++ without using any .NET framework. I have succedded to change my processor name in C++. But I am facing a problem when I want to disable the task manager. Here is my code.

    HKEY hKey;

    RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
                 "HARDWARE\\DESCRIPTION\\System\\CentralProcessor\\0",
                 0,
                 KEY_SET_VALUE,
                 &hKey);

    RegSetValueEx(hKey, REGNAME_TO_WRITE, 0, REG_SZ,
                  (const unsigned char *)"ProcessorNameString",
                  strlen("ProcessorNameString"));

    //RegCloseKey(hKey);

    // The problem begins here

     RegOpenKeyEx( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
                  "Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\MMC\\{74246bfc-4c96-11d0-abef-0020af6b0b7a}\\",
                  0,
                  KEY_SET_VALUE,
                  &hKey );

    RegSetValueEx( hKey,"Restrict_Run",0,REG_SZ,
                   (const unsigned char *)"1",
                   strlen("1") );

    RegCloseKey(hKey);

    return 0;
}

What version of Windows? What processor architecture? Perhaps you are running 32-bit code and changing the 32-bit view (WOW64 redirected) of the registry, but Windows is looking in the 64-bit registry. — Ben Voigt, Mar 22 '12 at 18:42

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

1

You should disable WOW64 registry redirection, or else your program may make changes to WOW6432Node instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

See Disabling registry redirection for a registry key on an x64 platform

edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

Community

1
1

answered Mar 22 '12 at 18:43

Ben Voigt

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Thanks for answering but what about HKEY hKey; `RegOpenKeyEx( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, "HARDWARE\\DESCRIPTION\\System\\CentralProcessor\\0", 0, KEY_SET_VALUE, &hKey ); RegSetValueEx( hKey,REGNAME_TO_WRITE,0,REG_SZ, (const unsigned char *)"ProcessorNameString", strlen("ProcessorNameString") );`This portion of code does change my processors' name perfectly. What is the problem for rest of the code. I am using windows 7 professional edition. – SM Farhad Ali Mar 23 '12 at 04:21

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 12 '15 at 07:42

0

Viola, I got the solution. The solution would be like this:

DWORD dwVal = 1;

HKEY hKey = HKEY_CURRENT_USER;

RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, "Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\MMC\\{74246bfc-4c96-11d0-abef-0020af6b0b7a}\\", 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, &hKey);

RegSetValueEx (hKey, "Restrict_Run", 0, REG_DWORD, (LPBYTE)&dwVal, sizeof(DWORD));

RegCloseKey(hKey);

edited Aug 12 '15 at 07:42

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 23 '12 at 05:17

SM Farhad Ali

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Can not disable Device Manager using a C++ program

2 Answers2