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For the people who doesn't want to download from pirated sites and who were waiting for the official release of Windows XP SP3, now the wait is over and it is available for download via Windows Update site though it is still not available on automatic updates.This is the full 316 meg file.
This file can be downloaded here
Written by Ankur Mittal on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Windows XP.
For the people who doesn’t want to download from pirated sites and who were waiting for the official release of Windows XP SP3, now the wait is over and it is available for download via Windows Update site though it is still not available on automatic updates.This is the full 316 meg file.
This file can be downloaded here
Written by Ankur Mittal on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Windows XP.
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A while back, there was a topic (Virtual Registry vs. "Real registry") in the Sysinternals Forums that brought up the question of how to set the virtualization-related flags of a registry key programmatically in Vista, rather than through the use of the REG.EXE tool's FLAGS switch. (For more information on the flags, see Mark Russinovich's article in TechNet Magazine, "Inside Windows Vista User Account Control"). Even before that topic in the forum, I had wondered how it was done but had not had a chance to explore. It didn't seem that many others were curious about it. That topic had resurrected the idea, but it quickly fell to the bottom of the list. I've finally gotten around to experimenting, and that leads to this write-up. I still don't see much in the way of this discussed anywhere, by searching for terms involved (data types, function param names, etc.), so hopefully this will help someone. (Keep in mind that there very well may be a reason Microsoft hasn't made this available through another, more direct API.)
In the referenced topic, I had gotten so far as determining that REG.EXE was doing its work through the use of NtSetInformationKey, an "undocumented" API in NTDLL.DLL.
NTSYSAPI
NTSTATUS
NTAPI
NtSetInformationKey(
IN HANDLE KeyHandle,
IN KEY_SET_INFORMATION_CLASS InformationClass,
IN PVOID KeyInformationData,
IN ULONG DataLength );
After a bit of plonking around in WinDbg, I've come up with the following following details. REG.EXE calls NtSetInformationKey, specifying a value of 2 for the InformationClass parameter. This parameter is of type KEY_SET_INFORMATION_CLASS, which wdm.h tells us is an enum:
typedef enum _KEY_SET_INFORMATION_CLASS {
KeyWriteTimeInformation,
KeyWow64FlagsInformation,
KeyControlFlagsInformation,
KeySetVirtualizationInformation,
KeySetDebugInformation,
MaxKeySetInfoClass // MaxKeySetInfoClass should always be the last enum
} KEY_SET_INFORMATION_CLASS;So the 2 for the InformationClass parameter would correspond to KeyControlFlagsInformation. WDM.H also suggests that this class has a type that one passes for the KeyInformationData parameter - KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION:
typedef struct _KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION {
ULONG ControlFlags;
} KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION, *PKEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION;We have a basic idea of how to call NtSetInformationKey now. But what are the values that the ControlFlags member of KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION can be set to? It would appear that the following (self-made) enum covers the pertinent flags - at least the ones REG.EXE FLAGS can handle (there may be more):
typedef enum _CONTROL_FLAGS {
RegKeyClearFlags = 0,
RegKeyDontVirtualize = 2,
RegKeyDontSilentFail = 4,
RegKeyRecurseFlag = 8
} CONTROL_FLAGS;The control flags are a bitmask, so you can OR them to set more than one.
Now that we have this information, what's left? We need to put it all together in a call to NtSetInformationKey. So, we need to get a pointer to the function in NTDLL.DLL. Then, we can declare a struct of type KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION, set the ControlFlags member to be what we wish, and open a key to the desired location in the registry, that can be passed to NtSetInformationKey. In the end, we wind up with something like the following (error handling has been omitted):
typedef NTSYSAPI NTSTATUS (NTAPI* FuncNtSetInformationKey) (
HANDLE KeyHandle,
KEY_SET_INFORMATION_CLASS InformationClass,
PVOID KeyInformationData,
ULONG DataLength );
//...
FuncNtSetInformationKey ntsik = (FuncNtSetInformationKey)GetProcAddress(
GetModuleHandle( _T("ntdll.dll") ), "NtSetInformationKey" );
KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION kcfi = {0};
kcfi.ControlFlags = RegKeyDontVirtualize | RegKeyRecurseFlag;
HKEY hTheKey = NULL;
RegOpenKeyEx( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, _T("SOFTWARE\\Whatever"), 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, &hTheKey );
ntsik( hTheKey, KeyControlFlagsInformation, &kcfi, sizeof( KEY_CONTROL_FLAGS_INFORMATION ) );
RegCloseKey( hTheKey );
hTheKey = NULL;
The code above is the equivalent of invoking REG.EXE FLAGS HKLM\Software\Whatever SET DONT_VIRTUALIZE RECURSE_FLAGS. To clear the flags, just set kcfi.ControlFlags to RegKeyClearFlags (same as REG.EXE FLAGS HKLM\Software\Whatever SET).
Hopefully, this will prove useful to those that have wished to set these flags programmatically. In a future post, I hope to explore querying for these flags, ala REG.EXE FLAGS HKLM\Software\Whatever QUERY.
Note that this exploration was done on Windows Vista SP1. I would expect the content here to also apply to Windows Vista (no SP) as well as Windows Server 2008, but...
Written by «/\/\Ø|ö±ò\/»®© on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on NtSetInformationKey and REG_KEY_DONT_SILENT_FAIL and REG_KEY_DONT_VIRTUALIZE and Sysinternals Forum and Troubleshooting and Virtualization and flags and reg and reg.exe flags and registry and registry virtualization and vista and windbg.
SP1 and SP3 will undoubtedly bring a new facet to the Windows client already fragile equilibrium, with the market divided between Windows XP and Windows Vista. And instead of the inhouse competition between the two products ending with the SP1 and SP3 milestones, Microsoft has manged noting more than to perpetuate the Vista/XP operating system measuring contest. The first signs of the new fuel being poured into the inherent XP SP3 and Vista SP1 comparison, came as early as the end of 2007 when the service packs were still in Beta, with the general tendency to crucify Vista SP1 and put XP SP3 up on a pedestal.
Written by Madhukar on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Vista service pack 1 and Xp Vs Vista.
SP1 and SP3 will undoubtedly bring a new facet to the Windows client already fragile equilibrium, with the market divided between Windows XP and Windows Vista. And instead of the inhouse competition between the two products ending with the SP1 and SP3 milestones, Microsoft has manged noting more than to perpetuate the Vista/XP operating system measuring contest. The first signs of the new fuel being poured into the inherent XP SP3 and Vista SP1 comparison, came as early as the end of 2007 when the service packs were still in Beta, with the general tendency to crucify Vista SP1 and put XP SP3 up on a pedestal.
Written by Madhukar on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Vista service pack 1 and Xp Vs Vista.
SP1 and SP3 will undoubtedly bring a new facet to the Windows client already fragile equilibrium, with the market divided between Windows XP and Windows Vista. And instead of the inhouse competition between the two products ending with the SP1 and SP3 milestones, Microsoft has manged noting more than to perpetuate the Vista/XP operating system measuring contest. The first signs of the new fuel being poured into the inherent XP SP3 and Vista SP1 comparison, came as early as the end of 2007 when the service packs were still in Beta, with the general tendency to crucify Vista SP1 and put XP SP3 up on a pedestal.
Written by Madhukar on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Vista service pack 1 and Xp Vs Vista.
SP1 and SP3 will undoubtedly bring a new facet to the Windows client already fragile equilibrium, with the market divided between Windows XP and Windows Vista. And instead of the inhouse competition between the two products ending with the SP1 and SP3 milestones, Microsoft has manged noting more than to perpetuate the Vista/XP operating system measuring contest. The first signs of the new fuel being poured into the inherent XP SP3 and Vista SP1 comparison, came as early as the end of 2007 when the service packs were still in Beta, with the general tendency to crucify Vista SP1 and put XP SP3 up on a pedestal.
Written by Madhukar on April 27th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Vista service pack 1 and Xp Vs Vista.