(Actually, on Win2K, HKCR is treated differently, but...)


Jeez, you Linux geeks have no idea what current_user is about.

Okay, here's how current_user works...

On Windows NT3/NT4//2000, the concept of multiple user profiles is strictly enforced. Each new user who logs in gets a whole new hive of entries under HKEY_USERS. The default values for these new users come from HKEY_USERS\.Default the first time they log in. In this case, HKEY_CURRENT_USER is just a pointer to that user's hive under HKEY_USERS.

On Windows 95/98/ME, multiple user profiles is an option. If multiple user profiles is not enabled, then every user is the same as the default user. In this case, HKEY_CURRENT_USER == HKEY_USERS\.Default. But if multiple user profiles are enabled, then suddenly everything works like it does on NT and suddenly HKEY_CURRENT_USER =/= HKEY_USERS\.Default.

I've had to deal with this in my company. A lot of developers would develop on 95/98 and assume that current_user==.default in all cases, then wonder why their software didn't work on NT or on a multiple-profiles-enabled system.

The HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG acts in a similar fashion, except in that case you're talking about various keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE being the actual keys. It appears as though the HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG stuff behaves a little differently, though, and this may be the root of the bug since the setting appears to be in that hive as well as in the user hive.

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Tony Fabris