Rainmeter HWiNFO64 HKEY_USERS

[yotsubruh]

I am trying to use rainmeter with HWiNFO64. I am on a standard Windows user account, while HWiNFO64 requires admin privileges to run so the registry variables do not appear under HKEY_CURRENT_USERS. I have found them under HKEY_USERS, but rainmeter does not support HKEY_USERS as a root key. Rainmeter only supports HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA, HKEY_DYN_DATA as valid root keys. Is there any other way to access the admin accounts registry for software from standard user? I do not want to run rainmeter in admin every time I start up.

[SilverAzide]

Is there any other way to access the admin accounts registry for software from standard user? I do not want to run rainmeter in admin every time I start up.

No, Windows itself will not allow this.

The problem you describe is really not a Rainmeter issue. It is a HWiNFO issue, in my opinion. HWiNFO should be storing sensor data in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive, not in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. You might want to post your concern on the HWiNFO forum, and perhaps Martin (the HWiNFO author) will take some action on the subject. Just keep in mind that this issue really has nothing to do with Rainmeter. It's being able to access Windows Sidebar Gadget sensor data from a non-admin user account.

[yotsubruh]

Thanks for the response! I will try the HWiFO forums.

Just for clarity, is there a specific reason why rainmeter doesn't support HKEY_USERS as a root variable? I'm guessing its for security? I have the necessary permissions to reg query HKEY_USERS HWiNFO64 variables from a standard user cmd.

[yotsubruh]

BTW, this is the response from Martin about the changes.

https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/threads/registry-access.7631/

[SilverAzide]

I added my two cents to that thread as well. Thank you!

[jsmorley]

The vast majority of users, who have accounts that can elevate programs to admin access on their PC's with UAC won't see any benefit from this. In addition, there will have to be a search and replace done on every skin, and there are no doubt tons, that have been changed or written to use HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Rainmeter is designed to run with a "user" approach. There is one copy of the application in C:\Program Files, but then the settings file, Rainmeter.ini, is in the user's APPDATA folder, and the skins are in the user's Documents folder.

This means that a single instance of the "program" can have very distinct settings and skins for each "user" account. I don't think it is particularly wise to put these keys in a "machine" level hive, rather than in a "user" level hive. If the computer is shared, this can only cause problems in my view.

In my view, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is for settings that are always going to be the same for every user on the computer. This will not necessarily be true for the values any given user selects to output for HWiNFO.

I really don't follow how you only find the values in HKEY_USERS. HKEY_CURRENT_USER is really a "shortcut" to the values found in HKEY_USERS, under a subkey that is the numeric account ID for each user. That is why we don't support HKEY_USERS in Rainmeter, it's really kinda redundant, and HKEY_CURRENT_USER is much easier to use.

I really think perhaps you are going to want to have an account on the computer that has administrator security, or perhaps run HWiNFO as a "Scheduled Task", where you can ensure that it is started with administrator access. It's not that Rainmeter requires admin access, it doesn't. HWiNFO certainly does.

[jsmorley]

We are currently discussing this in https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/threads/registry-access.7631/.