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otmontor registry settings

Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 1:22 am
by emmeesse68
Hi there,

Yesterday, launching otmonitor.exe as usual on my Windows box, I stumbled in a nasty error that's too long to be posted here (...actually I've been too lazy to take a screnshot :oops: ) but suggests something went wrong accessing the settings saved in the registry.

When I tried to run an old version (that I previously renamed to otmonior.4.2.2.exe) it ran correctly but with the wrong settings. I had to manually input the connection parameters (it was defaulting to COM3, while I use TCP connection since my OTGW is connected to another machine).

It worked but when I closed it and opened it again, settings updates were lost (back to COM3...)

I tried with an even older copy (renamed to otmonitor.4.2.1.exe) and it worked AND it saved the config correctly (I closed and reopened it and found the connection parameters to be OK).

There's obviously something screwed up with my registry. I searched it and found the following:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Tclcode\otmonitor
...and other keys named otmonitor.4.2.1 and otmonitor.4.2.2 after the renamed old version executables;

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Tclcode\otmonitor
...with the same other keys 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 and appearently the same settings of the above;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Tclcode\otmonitor
...this time the other keys are NOT present. Settings seem incomplete because there's no "tspeak" subkey.

Since otmonitor isn't installed (you can download and run it right away), I guess I can happily remove all the above keys at the only expenses of having to re-enter the changed ones manually...Is it right? Why are there three places with those settings?

Thanks...!

emmeesse68

Re: otmontor registry settings

Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 6:03 pm
by hvxl
emmeesse68 wrote:Why are there three places with those settings?
That's more a question for a Microsoft forum. OTmonitor only explicitly stores the settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software. The other copies are probably due to some of the usual Windows weirdness.

Feel free to delete these settings to start fresh. I expect that if you delete them in one place, they'll disappear from the other two places too. But maybe that requires a reboot. It's Windows, after all.

Re: otmontor registry settings

Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 6:21 pm
by emmeesse68
hvxl wrote: That's more a question for a Microsoft forum. OTmonitor only explicitly stores the settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software. The other copies are probably due to some of the usual Windows weirdness.

Feel free to delete these settings to start fresh. I expect that if you delete them in one place, they'll disappear from the other two places too. But maybe that requires a reboot. It's Windows, after all.
Thanks Schelte, I suspected something like that but didn't know if there was something in your code to write specific keys. Tonight I'll try to delete everything, start off fresh and see what happens. I'm running Windows 10, upgraded from Windows 8.1, that could mean the one copy in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software that seems not to get updated when I change things in otmonitor is a migration leftover.

Maybe it's a Windows 10 thing to relocate these keys, I'll search MS forums and try some empirical evidence and post here. It might come handy to others in the future... :)

Re: otmontor registry settings

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:35 am
by emmeesse68
OK I found it's a MS technique called Registry Virtualization...

msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/window ... s.85).aspx

You think your software will write into some HKLM\Software, but the O.S. will actually reroute it to HKEY_USERS\<User SID>_Classes\VirtualStore\Machine\Software


That explains the extra keys...