Registry

On Windows systems you can use the registry inspector to retrieve information about registry keys. For example, you can:

• Test for the existence of a specific key:

• Test the existence of a key with a value assigned:

• Retrieve the value of a specific key:

• Iterate through the names and values of keys in the registry:

• Discover the last time a given registry key was written:

When examining registry keys ensure that you:

• Include the word key in the expression.
• Surround by double quotes (") key values and key names.
• Write of registry after the key name.

Tip: Values from the registry are pre-defined as registry objects. This means that, even if they look like a string, folder, or time, you must cast the value into the type you want by using the commands as string, as folder, or as time. For example, if you want to know the first three characters of the value returned by this query:

you must specify as string as follows:

Shortcuts and Predefined commands

You can use the following shortcuts for registry keys:

You can use predefined commands to query at run time the list of registered applications (regapps), the list of applications currently running (running applications) and the list of most recently accessed applications (recent applications).

Note: If you are using the QnA tool to test your relevance queries, you might need to close and re-open the program to get an updated list of running applications.

Current user keys

On target systems, BigFix runs as LOCAL SYSTEM. To get the logged in user’s HKEY_CURRENT_USER value, you can search through the Logon keys for the name of the current user: